Showing posts with label René Magritte. Show all posts
Showing posts with label René Magritte. Show all posts

Thursday, March 30, 1995

EKPHRASTIC POEMS 3 poems from Magritte

—From The False Mirror:
Not to be Reproduced, 1928, 
by René Magritte 


I remember the way the eyes of the sky 
stared at me as if I was always in trouble, 
staring at the back of my own head
as if in a two-way mirror going nowhere,  
always watching myself departing 
like a train without tracks.
I come from a world of windows 
opening endlessly onto each other, 
like a Chinese puzzle.
My mind was shaving its chin 
in a cold water walk up flat,
and doves flew from my eyes.

March 30, 1995 
Higham Family School, Santa Rosa


RIFFS FORM SEVERAL MAGRITTE PAINTINTGS

My eyes became the silhouette of clouds. 
I have my reasons for wanting to chase 
the origin of light from my dreams. 
How infinite is the sound of clocks 
reverberating in empty rooms.
Once I dreamed the buildings of the city 
became huge mantle clocks,
and the mountain grew new peaks 
in the form of nesting eagles.
As if the reckless sleeper had lost its night horse. 
Where does it start? The life of a dream, 
the end in the source. Dusk and day light. 
Silence reigns with the perfection of an empire, 
its face forever to the sun.

March 30, 1995 
Higham Family School, Santa Rosa


How many windows in your name?
Within me, apples tumble from green rooms,
roses wrestle with the unspoken thoughts.
The doings of bird and sky.
I have made my rocky bed 
amid the stones of the past.
This world of bone and skull 
and the perfection of green rain 
penetrating the endless night.
The train finds its way home alone 
even though the birds sleep. 
If the worn-out words find us mouthless,
will they become the thoughts of birds 
opening towards the unknown father?

March 30, 1995 
Higham Family School, Santa Rosa
slightly revised 11/16/2015