Friday, June 5, 2015

Neil Ellman- Three Poems


Fugue Number 2

(Richard Pousette-Dart, painting)

Whomever I am, whatever
I have become
outside myself, apart, detached
like a song repeated in a voice
I’ve never had
or the mirror image of my face
without its eyes nor mine

I soar in space, a spectral bird
on wings of anomie
the darkness carries me
in its wake          
whomever, whatever
I have become
wherever I must go
to see once more
what I once was.


The Great Masturbator

(Salvador DalĂ­, painting)

From the palm of a hand
the power of ten
a swelling appetite
desirous of the self
as if it were another
a thing apart
a bloated monster
heaving at its cage
released
let loose
out of hand and mind
and then to shape
a blind reality
as time stands still
and space contracts.


Ventriloquist

(Jasper Johns, lithograph)

To make you speak
as if you have a voice your own
I barely move my lips
and you repeat my soul.


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