Neil Ellman- Two Poems

Uncle Joe 

(after the painting by George Condo)

There’s one in every family

a no-account without a pot to piss in

no job, no children, no wife

(even his cat died long ago

from fleas and dysentery)

but he can balance a glass of muscadet

on the flat of his foot while prostrate in

the grass (where he can be found

most mornings) his penis saluting

the incredulous sun:  “Hi ho,” it says,

belching bubbles of bilious gas,

and he is caught, once again,

in the delirium of his own embarrassment,

his artichoke face with elephantine ears

and blazing-saddle teeth, looking

dumbfounded.  “What day is this?”

he asks, babbling something about

Ephesians 5:18 and the lack of values

among the idle young

but he can whistle passages from

the Upanishads through the gaps

between his teeth and recite Rimbaud

while chewing chicken bones—

my Uncle Joe, and yours, is wiser than

his sister thinks.

Panorama 

(after the painting by Cy Twombly)

Traces of words

in a magnetic field

circling as fast as light

dodging, careening

protocols of

colliding, crackling

sound

crying infants

about to speak

their first words

where words

were never heard—

here in a cyclotron

the static of stars

becoming poetry.