January 12 -- Ruth Bavetta

Camera degli Sposi (The Bridal Chamber)

--ceiling fresco, Andrea Mantegna, 1474

Afterwards, we lie on the bed,

limbs flung wide, my kirtle, his doppieto

on the floor, tangled with the wedding

silks, our sweaty bodies far apart,

breathing hard, but not in unison.

The ceiling above me is a painted balustrade

around a painted hole, a painted sky

strewn with painted clouds.

It’s like being at the bottom of a well.

Outside, it could be raining—

lightning, thunder, stars darkening,

but in this room the sky is always blue.

What a crowd up there around the edge—

all those merry cherubs, a dark man in a turban,

several women staring, even a bird.

I feel like I should cover up.

The cherubs have fat, creased thighs,

stubby little penises. The man cocks

his head. The bird gazes at the clouds,

as if overtaken by yearning.

Below, on rumpled sheets

of fine-woven linen, I touch his shoulder.

That bird, I ask, is it a pheasant?

He looks, rolls away from me.

Idiota, he says, it’s a peacock.

I want to stroke the soft hair

curling at the back of his neck

but I don’t dare. Instead I look up.

On the balustrade

between two women, is a heavy tub

filled with greenery, balanced

on the very edge.

From  Fugitive Pigments (2013, FutureCycle Press)

Image link:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Andrea_Mantegna_064.jpg

January 11 -- Ruth Bavetta

Luncheon on the Grass
                            —Eduard Manet, 1863

Two young men

lounge on the grass,

black jackets, spotless trousers.

Next to them, a naked woman.

Another woman, wearing only

her shimmy, dabbles in the pond.

Picnic basket, overturned,

spills ripe fruit, golden bread.

The men absorbed in discussion—

philosophy, stock market, horses—

haven’t even removed their cravats,

or tasted the food the women brought.

The naked woman’s feet are muddy,

perhaps she’s just come from a dip

beside her sister. Instead of listening

to the men,  she stares out at us.

So? She says, when was your last picnic?

When did you last strip down

and turn your muddy feet to view?

In a minute, she’ll reach out

and bite into one of those peaches.

From my book, Fugitive Pigments (2013, FutureCycle Press)

image link:  http://www.manet.org/images/gallery/the-luncheon-on-the-grass.jpg

January 10 -- Bill Cushing

ON MODEST MUSSOURGSKY’S "BYDLO"

A shape appears

and is gone,

comes into view,

disappears, until,

cresting the hill,

the spot

blotting the sun,

a cartload of hay,

takes shape.

 

Emerging,

the wagon,

oxen-drawn, a juggernaut pulled

by two thousand pounds,

rolls between fields--

grinding dirt,

crushing stones.

Sweating flanks

of coarse,

matted hair

cause slow,

rhythmic hammering,

dull thunder

as hooves pound earth.

The ground moves

to the sound

of these hardened

timpani.

Beast and wagon pass,

processional,

as if solemn,

and then recede

slowly

out of sight.

 

A wake is left--

strong pungent odor

of musk

mixed

with the sweet sharpness

of the cut stalks

being carried

to the village beyond.

http://i1.wp.com/korschmin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Bydlo_Van_Gogh.jpg?resize=646%2C480

January 9 -- Grace Marie Grafton

Cat and a Ball

Her companion cat and how to make it

stronger, how to give it credit and

honor, really, for being such a mainstay

in her life. Sitting, mornings, in the sun

on the windowseat while she grumbles

out of bed, stumbles to the bathroom,

tells herself her dreams aren't real but

oh! she wishes to return to their ir-

reality, no matter how weird because

look at the weirdness of the everyday

human world. Her cat purrs as she

runs fingertips over its fur, she wishes

she could have a chat with its feline

mind, wishes she knew how to purr

and be entranced by a red ball,

small but irresistible reason to live.

"Cat and a Ball on a Waterfall"

Ursula Barnes, ca. 1948

January 8 -- Grace Marie Grafton

Coming into

The canyon for the first time, the brown

hill to the south with its gold undercolor

like nothing her old life could offer. She felt

uncertain then, of what she wanted or could

love. How to depart from forest and water she knew

she could count on. Kaleidoscopic green, turn

as she might, the leaves the vines the undergrowth

with its required mistiness in every degree. Here

the hills, even the ground squirrels, stark, ragged.

Flora, air so naked she can see the dry grass

blades separate from each other a mile away.

Hawk vision. Hawk heart rising into what

seems so simple. No untangle required.

"Mountain"

Francis McComes, 1908

January 7 -- Grace Marie Grafton

The Artist Paints the Light

The light in Yosemite Valley lifts his mind

to the height of granite cliffs and

there he is, next to a black oak,

trunk a solid soldier ready to ascend

with him into the impossible ether.

His vision rises to the topmost leaves,

shares the compulsion

to merge with unadulterated light,

how it rushes out of blue and white

to slather them into the actuality it will

become. He understands that, even

though light seems, to the static,

the most desirable of existences,

light itself longs to be leaf, petal,

eyelash, eye that sees.

"Looking up the Yosemite Valley"

Albert Bierstadt, 1863

January 6 -- Dean Kostas

PEYOTE CANDLE

                                      after Lee Mullican

         Empty eyes of birds

shatter outward into spheres,

galaxies. Rims

singe rims, rain

lexicons.

Words whorl into folds

of cerebellum,

withered recall:

a dog stroked,

a mallard arcing its argyle neck

toward the sun in a circular lake,

toward a multiverse of disks.

The liquefaction of language

recedes between pages

of a book no one can pry—

a tome whose wings soar

with the tail of a comet

burning itself out.