I wrote another sonnet does it make you want to love me?
This poem was originally published in After: A Collection of Ekphrastic Writing and Art, from Gasher Press.
I wrote another sonnet does it make you want to love me?
an ekphrastic dialogue
after “The Large Glass” by Marcel Duchamp
even a bride stripped bare by her bachelors can’t avoid being
made into a machine herself. so opposite motion awaits
perpetual. how else to maintain an arrangement unpredictable
against fate except to grin and bear it as light through glass.
fractures wouldn’t matter except routine expectation shapes
desire. proffering noble declarations in traditional styles
they follow beaten paths to drum what little life remains
into dust. burrowing in popular crypts to ransack corpses
with industry I lay among their dead and shout decay. and still
what tattered pieces might you discover if forced to descend
to where I dwell. inscribed there solitary darkness suggests
your presence as a cast shadow holds up a figure to the sun.
although such a staged dance of expressions can’t convince
you know my useless words would give way to so much more.
made into a machine herself. so opposite motion awaits
perpetual. how else to maintain an arrangement unpredictable
against fate except to grin and bear it as light through glass.
fractures wouldn’t matter except routine expectation shapes
desire. proffering noble declarations in traditional styles
they follow beaten paths to drum what little life remains
into dust. burrowing in popular crypts to ransack corpses
with industry I lay among their dead and shout decay. and still
what tattered pieces might you discover if forced to descend
to where I dwell. inscribed there solitary darkness suggests
your presence as a cast shadow holds up a figure to the sun.
although such a staged dance of expressions can’t convince
you know my useless words would give way to so much more.
sigh. no matter how these fissures produce such playful sleights
your turns of phrase still isolate. unable to bask in my light when
at this height even waterfalls drain through sieves. you become
heavy with holes. a din in dark spaces at the mouth of a bottle.
in continuous suspension your ideas scatter like rain tears through
an overturned parasol. mere stones in cemeteries uniforms show
devotion akin to gears grinding down teeth in machines. runners
chasing their finish line never tire although open scissors suggest
shortcuts to abrupt endings might yet be possible. and I blossom
nonetheless without your erotic litanies fit for priests blowing gas
in the dark. in mirrors I witness so much more than you and your
architectonic delusions could ever command. anyways electricity
transmits by current not osmosis. and though it might ignite sparks
burning buildings to the ground your love to me tastes of gasoline.
your turns of phrase still isolate. unable to bask in my light when
at this height even waterfalls drain through sieves. you become
heavy with holes. a din in dark spaces at the mouth of a bottle.
in continuous suspension your ideas scatter like rain tears through
an overturned parasol. mere stones in cemeteries uniforms show
devotion akin to gears grinding down teeth in machines. runners
chasing their finish line never tire although open scissors suggest
shortcuts to abrupt endings might yet be possible. and I blossom
nonetheless without your erotic litanies fit for priests blowing gas
in the dark. in mirrors I witness so much more than you and your
architectonic delusions could ever command. anyways electricity
transmits by current not osmosis. and though it might ignite sparks
burning buildings to the ground your love to me tastes of gasoline.