The Artist in
Paris
Edict
by Mail: Banish Your Belly, Butt and Thighs
I
Attend Divine Liturgy at the Jones-Moles Funeral Home
Coming Into Church
The Artist in Paris
The Artist is at the Louvre
Carrying his masterpiece hopefully
From room to room.
He talks of color
With Venus;
Begs the patronage of La Jaconde,
(Her smile so like his mother’s.)
The canvas is heavy.
The Artist framed it himself.
He wanders past tourists
Trying to look casual,
But the thing is so cussedly big.
The tourists gaze round him;
He smoothes down his mustache.
“Pardon,” he says
In excruciating French.
But he doesn’t really mean it.
The Artist makes a sandwich board of his painting
And parades (diffidently) the Champs Elysées.
The citizens of Paris do not know what to do with the Artist.
He breaks the feet
He has such a sad face
He refuses to say anything intelligible
They could push him off the Pont du Nord,
But the colors would wash into the Seine
And tinge the water for days.
He stands under the lamps
At the Hôtel de Ville.
Puts a bêret at his feet
Tries to hum.
Once or twice the Artist sighs.
Rain beads his eyebrows.
He considers becoming a street mime.
It is late,
The lovers tucked away at
Hôtel La Puce, contented.
The Artist wearies of pacing.
He gathers his beret and slides
Six centimes into his trousers, then
Curls in a doorway
Out of the mizzle,
The painting
Transfigured
To a canopy
Of light.
Edict by Mail: Banish Your Belly, Butt and Thighs
And if I did,
Where would they go?
Would they roll the long hills
To languish
Flaccid
In some desert place?
Soft curves of mine
That ripened with young
And cushioned the smallness of infant backs
In the gray mornings,
You have become unworthy.
Banishment? It is the only course:
To slide away silent
Into the wild wood
And face the jackals unaided
(Smother them, perhaps).
It is a land of laws we live in
Sentencing us to part with that fat joy.
We may no longer sit comfortable
But we do what is right.
And so you must depart.
I’ll pack a small knapsack of sugary things:
Puddings and cakes we used to eat in the deep night.
You will take them to the forest
With no trail to follow back.
Farewell then, flesh of my flesh!
I’ll wish you to some far-flung land
Where big-bottomed mamas sing their children happy
And laugh fierce
And round
And radiant.
I
Attend Divine Liturgy at the Jones-Moles Funeral Home
Sunday. Clear. Pacific.
Three deer graze
At the edge of I-5,
But I’m no fool.
We wheel north to go East
Arriving precipitately at the exit ramp.
Four shopping carts rust
At the corner of Lakeway and Lincoln.
We cross Puget
And an oyster-blue house,
Postwar.
Undine,
Verona,
Left on Yew,
Pull into the mourners’ entrance.
I light a taper
Like the Greek boy in the film when I was ten.
I am struck by frankincense,
A smell of lifting.
I will not give in.
* * *
* *
Try and pull me, God.
Infuse yourself in deer,
In shopping carts,
In small Greek boys with tapers.
You may try to sink into my skin,
Become a man and act as if you know me,
But I am not so easily seduced.
You will have to work harder
Than ancient hymns that sing themselves as truth.
Be present and transcendent both,
Be fisher, fish and net,
Be granite, yew and oyster-shell,
Be funeral, body and shroud.
* * *
* *
I am onto you
Almighty maker of the mouths of Baptists,
Tabernacle of Torah takers
Roaring from the abyss.
I have stood too many times
At the edge of Hell.
I have been a firewalker for you –
My feet burned.
I’ll have my rapture naked,
Rising from sand to be caught
By saints and sinners both.
And you, God,
Where will you be?
Try and answer that.
Coming Into Church
That stomach dread is back
Walking the aisle
Doubtful,
The diamonds of Holy Week strewn like
So many eyes winking.
Try not to think of the I.
You must work as one observed
Grieving.
Collect
The paradox of wildweed, the shame which
Falls away
Or clings like burrs.
What are pews, books, icons?
The artifacts of longing?
What, then, the pregnant word?
A packaged promise opening
To your caress?
You hesitate
And in that hesitation
Is the truth.
Do not scoff at it.
Only inhale.
Exhale.
Walk.