Within the safe shadow, shaded from the sun
I sit quietly on my wooden block, with splinters,
watching a statue offer its growing blackness,
a sacrifice to the tower,
a red tower,
isn’t it obvious
overwhelming countryside as it is meant to,
a fortress for a Medici, perhaps, or a cardinal,
rising to the Prussian sky. (Does anyone say
Prussian any more?)
The horseman gallops from a marbleized pedestal,
galvanized hooves on compacted earth.
I keep looking for the cardinal
I keep looking for the birds
as I rest my neck
on my wooden block.
The TweetSpeak poetry theme this month is Surrealism, and Seth Haines has asked us to listen to some rather surrealistic music (complete with playlist), do some research, and write a poem. So after listening to Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold,” Peter Bradley Adams’ “Darkening Sky” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” off I went to find a Surrealist painting or two, and ran into Giorgio de Chirico. To see what others are up to, surrealistically speaking, of course, visit TweetSpeak Poetry.
This poem is also submitted to Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. The links will be live at 2 p.m. Central time.
Illustration: The Red Tower, oil on canvas by Giorgio de Chirico (1913), Guggenheim Museum.
My favorite section: "I keep looking for the cardinal/ I keep looking for the birds / as I rest my neck / on my wood block." One cannot miss the symbolism here.
ReplyDeleteresting your neck on the wooden block has a bit of a scary connotation, just saying....
ReplyDeletefunny we were just talking of prussia in history class on monday....
certainly surreal.
ReplyDeleteI liked the phrase "the safe shadow"
BTW -- do you know you have CAPTCH turned on -- word identification. It makes it difficult to submit comments. FYI
i had chills reading this. Glad you shared it us
ReplyDeleteThose last four lines are your most powerful, evoking a vision powerful and simultaneously compelling and repelling.
ReplyDeleteThose last four lines are your most powerful, evoking a vision powerful and simultaneously compelling and repelling.
ReplyDeletesitting on those splinters.... do not seem inviting, but nice work on the poem
ReplyDelete