Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Jonathan Beale- Three Poems


A vision of Mark Rothko

Too vast and even too bold
A desert to huge to lose
And obviously lost completely.
The color’s clear as water
A poignant life. And as necessary
One can view the point
One can feel the point in one’s side;
Some awaiting some action -
The blood flowing with water
This simple eye in the world
Stretched ever outward. Ever outward
The world is upside down
Never back to front. It looks one-way
And then tomorrow grows in its tiny way 
            Taken to be given. So life is.

 

Standing by a monument in a park.

Space is hungry demanding.
You stood tall and took what you had to

In each rotten borough a promise was found
You stood tall and took what you had to

The current that blind and invisible turns and hurls
You stood tall and took what you had to

How did your achievement become something then?
You stood tall and took what you had to

They expected me with pens to come and take
You stood tall and took what you had to

The life then sorrowfully missed until
You stood tall and took what you had to

The time has passed and life again to be ripped
You stood tall and took what you had



From A study of the human body (1991)

After a painting by Francis Bacon

Just a slice of tissue
from-the-scalpel
where the scalpel
is both king and queen.
Merely microscopic
A flash fiction of a life
Written in who, what,
When, and where…
Now written across
In WAS, WAS, WAS.
Without language -
Something so real
Something so loud 
Just real flesh and real bone
Reality’s voluptuousness  
muscle & tissue
Framed still in times frame
From this shop window
From the window of life.
There is no sense.
There is no love.
There is emotion.
In this hollow metallic
Ceramic scene -
just tissue beneath
where once
Words, love, touch, and desire.
Once roamed free.


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