February 2016
Ed Ruzicka
edzekezone@gmail.com
edzekezone@gmail.com
At 16 I was a Cubs fan from a Cubs family when I got drug to a “Dada & Surrealism” show at the Art Institute of Chicago. Now my brother says, “ I live here and you go to the Institute way more than me.” My book, “Engines of Belief” is an ekphrastic jubilee dedicated to Modern Art. edrpoet.com
In the Garden
Henri Rousseau — "The Dream"
When the dark limbed flutist appears
while you are taking tea on the divan,
you will set that cup down as if you
were suddenly so voluminous a Goddess
that your neighborhood of clipped lawns,
your double-door garage & the children's rooms
where socks lay draped, and the washer
that spins on its axis, and even
your husband razoring his beard
will all grow minute as an ant’s village
whose toil alone seems Herculean.
So small that it could be set down
in the minor locomotion one uses,
(and one is so often in a blink
of a trance as they do so),
the slight effort one uses, to set down a cup of tea.
That is the way
that you will leave your life
when the flutist appears,
when his breath's music
lifts you toward him
where he stands under the shadow of a branch,
his genitalia glowing within neon-bright rings
the way Saturn glows in its orbit.
He will beckon you with sounds that draw also
the water buffalo and the lion to lie before him
and you will walk among them again,
you will walk among them
again.
while you are taking tea on the divan,
you will set that cup down as if you
were suddenly so voluminous a Goddess
that your neighborhood of clipped lawns,
your double-door garage & the children's rooms
where socks lay draped, and the washer
that spins on its axis, and even
your husband razoring his beard
will all grow minute as an ant’s village
whose toil alone seems Herculean.
So small that it could be set down
in the minor locomotion one uses,
(and one is so often in a blink
of a trance as they do so),
the slight effort one uses, to set down a cup of tea.
That is the way
that you will leave your life
when the flutist appears,
when his breath's music
lifts you toward him
where he stands under the shadow of a branch,
his genitalia glowing within neon-bright rings
the way Saturn glows in its orbit.
He will beckon you with sounds that draw also
the water buffalo and the lion to lie before him
and you will walk among them again,
you will walk among them
again.
For Laura
Claude Monet — “Water Lilies”
Claude Monet — “Water Lilies”
We sat in the quiet of her home
a few days after the surgeon
had placed her under a canopy of sleep
to excise an uninvited guest from her chest.
We had tea over ice, slice of lemon.
Laura’s second son, Joshua, was to be married soon
to, she assured me, a charming girl. She was
concerned how she would look in fine dress.
I’d brought her a book of Monet paintings.
We laughed at how those blooms
would last well beyond the bounty
of roses the florist had delivered.
She was loved. She knew that she was loved.
Weeks later by a fountain in the atrium of a building,
I realized how her serenity had penetrated me
though I was the one who was supposed to be
giving to her. Monet’s lilies resting on water
cast this glow of peace. Being vegetal, lilies
can not show the dignity that Laura bore
in the quiet of her own house, talking
only days after her wounds were received.
We were in a room where her children still
passed at odd hours showing, at times, reflections of
her dignity. So that I can gauge that this, her manner,
will be passed down to her children’s children
for at least as long as Monet’s flowers grace gallery walls.
a few days after the surgeon
had placed her under a canopy of sleep
to excise an uninvited guest from her chest.
We had tea over ice, slice of lemon.
Laura’s second son, Joshua, was to be married soon
to, she assured me, a charming girl. She was
concerned how she would look in fine dress.
I’d brought her a book of Monet paintings.
We laughed at how those blooms
would last well beyond the bounty
of roses the florist had delivered.
She was loved. She knew that she was loved.
Weeks later by a fountain in the atrium of a building,
I realized how her serenity had penetrated me
though I was the one who was supposed to be
giving to her. Monet’s lilies resting on water
cast this glow of peace. Being vegetal, lilies
can not show the dignity that Laura bore
in the quiet of her own house, talking
only days after her wounds were received.
We were in a room where her children still
passed at odd hours showing, at times, reflections of
her dignity. So that I can gauge that this, her manner,
will be passed down to her children’s children
for at least as long as Monet’s flowers grace gallery walls.
At Folies-Bergère
Edouard Manet — “Bar at Folies-Bergère”
I think of her as some neighbor’s daughter, a Julie,
who came to Girl Scout meetings in our basement.
Though her frame is tall-to-stately as she leans
the ripe symmetry of her bosoms forward,
this Julie’s left eye differs from her right.
Her right eye gleams, greets the man.
Men have come to her like this before.
She has given them what they wanted.
It is her job, her way. Julie’s job. Julie’s way.
Her porcelain features stand serene
within a dizzy and careening clatter.
She holds herself with the remove
of an elder who has been listening
to some younger, some radiant, confidant
talk of infatuation with a gent whom
she, the elder, knows for a wastrel.
We do not know who has been on top of this Julie
or how they left the apartment, found
their way down the stair, returned
into the pitch of night which breathes
in the corners of this barroom and spreads
across the back of every suit coat.
We do not know for sure whether or not
Julie is carrying; or if she has ransomed herself to pay
a back-alley quack with a cut-blade for
a few minutes bleed. Or maybe on Sundays
she goes to her mother’s to see her boy and
pockets a few of these oranges that the son devours
with a glee that sustains her for the rest of the week.
All we can say is that what has happened
has changed the way that Julie’s left eye
meets the world. That those who stride toward her,
gayly attired and with the fruit of the world offered them,
fall momentarily within the cold cave-light of that pupil.
And that it is more difficult now to fix Julie’s age
than it is to understand her future.
who came to Girl Scout meetings in our basement.
Though her frame is tall-to-stately as she leans
the ripe symmetry of her bosoms forward,
this Julie’s left eye differs from her right.
Her right eye gleams, greets the man.
Men have come to her like this before.
She has given them what they wanted.
It is her job, her way. Julie’s job. Julie’s way.
Her porcelain features stand serene
within a dizzy and careening clatter.
She holds herself with the remove
of an elder who has been listening
to some younger, some radiant, confidant
talk of infatuation with a gent whom
she, the elder, knows for a wastrel.
We do not know who has been on top of this Julie
or how they left the apartment, found
their way down the stair, returned
into the pitch of night which breathes
in the corners of this barroom and spreads
across the back of every suit coat.
We do not know for sure whether or not
Julie is carrying; or if she has ransomed herself to pay
a back-alley quack with a cut-blade for
a few minutes bleed. Or maybe on Sundays
she goes to her mother’s to see her boy and
pockets a few of these oranges that the son devours
with a glee that sustains her for the rest of the week.
All we can say is that what has happened
has changed the way that Julie’s left eye
meets the world. That those who stride toward her,
gayly attired and with the fruit of the world offered them,
fall momentarily within the cold cave-light of that pupil.
And that it is more difficult now to fix Julie’s age
than it is to understand her future.
©2016 Ed Ruzicka