Neil Ellman- Three Poems

Introducing the Miracle

(after the gouache by Paul Klee)

There are too few miracles

that have the substance of a tree

its revelation of wood and leaf

the bend of its branches

in the wind

and history rooted

in the earth

no coincidence or accident—

of bleeding stone

but flesh and blood

fire and ice

a newborn child  

like a star

in a palpable sky.

Circus Sideshow

(after the painting by Georges Seurat)

I am no weirder than you

and you than me.

We are pinheaded brothers

under reptilian skin

and in the marrow

of our misshapen bones

half-woman, half-man

connected at the hips

we are no weirder

than a platypus

a giraffe on fire

in a surrealist’s dream

the croaking sound

that a bullfrog makes

and the path of light

as it bends around the sun—

how ordinary we are

under the circus tent 

alongside elephants

and human cannonballs                    

in the sideshow

that is life.

City of Churches

(after the pencil/watercolor by Paul Klee)

In the city of churches

gods walk

among the shadows of steeples

and spires

like ordinary men

unrecognizable, nondescript    

to toil in the shops and fields

with nothing of the manners

and attitude

that speak of their divinity—

in the city of churches

all men are gods

under a stained glass sky.