“Once upon a time”

There was a time when
there was no time.
Then, there was
no sickle gripped in death’s dark hand,
no plague to plague the land,
no breath to breathe,
no light to see,
no sea to tickle the sand.

United States, War Department. Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1891 (2 vols.).

history, poems, poetry

Morning’s Maul

Some nights…
Naomi Shihab Nye,“Hello”

Some mornings shy at the dawn,
some claw the night to death.
We slid into Friday
like a Sunday afternoon.

But soon it baked
our clay in blood.

Mid-seven,
Mr. Jones scattered
all the birds
with his caw,

while the dust danced
down sunlit slides
and the morning
mauled
the dawn.

Postscript:

July 3, 1863 “The town of Gettysburg looked as if some universal moving day had been interrupted by catastrophe.” But there was only one documented civilian death during the battle: Ginnie Wade (also widely known as Jennie), 20 years old, was hit by a stray bullet that passed through her kitchen in town while she was making bread.
Bruce Catton

July 1-3, 1863, one-hundred and fifty-eight years ago, the Battle of Gettysburg began and resulted in the largest casualties of the American Civil War.

The Battle of Gettysburg resulted in eight-thousand men killed in combat; these bodies, baking in the heat of summer, needed to be buried quickly. Over three-thousand horse carcasses were burned in a series of piles south of town; townsfolk became violently ill from the stench. Meanwhile, the town of Gettysburg, with its population of just two-thousand, found itself tasked with taking care of fourteen-thousand wounded Union troops and an additional eight-thousand Confederate prisoners.

According to lore, the Union soldier to fire the first shot of the battle of Gettysburg was Lt. Marcellus Jones.

Civil War era soldiers – photographer unknown circa 1865

L. Prang & Co. lithograph of the painting "Hancock at Gettysburg" by Thure de Thulstrup, showing Pickett's Charge. Restoration by Adam Cuerden. — L. Prang & Co. lithograph of the painting “Hancock at Gettysburg” by Thure de Thulstrup, showing Pickett’s Charge. Restoration by Adam Cuerden.

Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai’s (1760-1849) 1831 woodcut

haiku, poetry

The Great Wave

So many eyes have seen this sea, they’re blind.

one of thirty-six
fishermen brave the high sea —
mighty fuji’s seen

meditate on where
oh, place the kento¹ with care —
every part is spare

the sea’s our lover
her lovers brave her fury  —
lapis lazuli ²

my love’s a dragon 
Edo³ sees the fickle sea — 
push the brush away

So many eyes have seen this sea, they're blind.

@ rlbusséll 2021 - All rights reserved.

Panorama of Edo from Atagoyama by Felice Beato (1865 or 1866)

The Japanese printing “registration” system. Registration is a method printers use to guarantee that each print in a series is aligned the same way. ↩
a bright blue metamorphic rock consisting largely of lazurite,
a bright blue pigment formerly made by crushing, being the original ultramarine. ↩
Edo = Tokyo ↩

poetry

Alabaster Arms

Painting: M. Caravaggio, 1601. Oil on canvas 91 inches x 69 inches. Located in the Saint Maria del Popolo Church, *Rome. (Detail)*

Michael’s chiseled hands have ¹
not formed me as Adonis
and yet Medusa’s writhing’s ²
have made me as cold as stone.

Alabaster arms,
alabaster lips,
a cold and lifeless form;
Pygmalion’s infant ³
breath lies ever stillborn.

Yet, I sculpt my life for all to see.
Display it, set it in museum-free.
Wait for all to come critique
my jaundiced eye, my hobbled knee,
and pray they not nail me to a tree.

But if they do,
I pray they see fit
to rest me by my top.⁴
Then with Peter, I’ll
cringe at our thrice told tale⁵
and wrest not glory
from The Ancient Story.

Let me not efface the face that sculpted I.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni or more commonly known by his first name Michelangelo. ↩
In Greek mythology, Medusa was a monster, a Gorgon, generally described as a winged human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Gazers upon her face would turn to stone. ↩
Like many do with Frankenstein and his monster, I’ve conflated Pygmalion with his creation. : ) ↩
Church tradition has it that Saint Peter was crucified upside-down. Origen says: “Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downwards, as he himself had desired to suffer”. ↩
Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said: “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. — Matthew 26:75 ↩

bible, maunday-thursday, poems, poetry, sonnet

A Morning Crow

This day we’re meant to sing love’s newest note —
to note Christ’s washing filthy toe and heel.

“Lord, I’m a lamb, don’t treat me like a goat.”
“If I don’t wash you — you, I’ll never heal.”
“Then wash my feet, my hands, my head, my all.”

“O children, I’ve but time to bathe your feet,
after this night, after silver and gall,
I’ll tell you all — now I’ve time for your feet.”

After each toe was washed by Heaven’s head,
our Lord returned to the table and sat
to speak of hardened heart and dripping bread,
to speak of Simon’s son — the Devil’s rat;
that solid Son-of-Jonah’s triple no,
betrayal, bleating sheep — a morning crow.

Ford Maddox Brown, “Jesus Washing the Disciples’ Feet”
(Oil on Canvas, 45.9″ × 52.4″, 1852–6)

poems, poetry

Widow’s Walk

I have seen a widow’s walk
where seven gables point the sky,
and I have stared at chalk
hoping to draw the perfect I.

But why?
Why set my feet where Hawthorne trod?
Why practice to marry eye to hand?
Why collect all those marks
set to paper, board or ageless cloth?
Why wonder at the ephemeral moth?

haiku, poetry, saiku, sonnet

M. Caravaggio

Painter. Profligate.
Michelangelo, the fool. —
Cardsharps in Kahn’s hall.

Was there a time when demons conquered, stayed;
when Anthony’s tormentors shied away?
Why roam through Rome your bravado displayed;
why take your eye from your vision to stray?
Your meanest tableaus set my mind aflame;
Your work has worked itself into myself;
Your brush became my only brush with fame.
Uffizi’s Medusa’s upon my shelf.
Blesséd Matthew, gripped by passion and flame,
is taught by an angel’s breathless whisper.
Then there is your telling of our night’s shame
when, in the dark, Light was framed with silver.
Do you still lie amid the labyrinthine
streets of your Caesars’ stony concubine?

The echoing step
Moves us through history’s halls —
Saint Matthew’s burning.

My name still flies amid cent’ries’ darkness
and like an ever circling bird, rises.
My demons still roam my Rome in darkness
looking for young flesh and tender prizes;
Time’s elusive progress is circling ’round.
Night required I prick with sharpened sword
and sharpened tongue my enemies to hound;
they were circling ‘round my girls to hoard
their beauty and so keep my fame at bay.
Have you seen my Fillide? Does she still live
within Peter’s shadowy cabaret?
I need to know if our flame will outlive
my canvas, my sword, my haughty bluster.
Do her lips still call men to her chamber?

Tiber flows swiftly.
A starving tern yearns for food —
Pleasures at coin’s cost!

Fillide did what she had to do to live
and at the dawn of her womanhood, she
plied her flesh and soul to live; the attractive
are often forced, in poverty, to flee
morality, and thus all the devils win.
Fillide did die so many years ago
that time has almost forgotten her sin.
It must be pain entire to hit so low.
I’m sure your Fillide’s flame is still burning;
for her will did will herself in a frame.
She died remembering you without spurning.
She left us while petitioning our Dame.
I pray Mary heard you at your last breath
that all your darkness did not mark your death.

Mortar frames her bed.
We all seem to hold our breath —
The nightingale sings.

I can’t recall the cutlass’ cut ’n’ flash.
My flesh was torn too soon to notice much.
I recall the slow gasp, the bloody slash,
the eyes so filled with knowing. And no touch
can bring my blood to flowing. And no word
can now make sinew move my dusty bones.
All was darkness, there was a footfall heard,
(the mute sound of leather on hardened stones)
and then a challenge I could ne’er refuse.
My rage ’twas like on Malta’s rock. I burned.
I flared. “I’ll not have you my name ill-use.
I am Caravaggio! You’re ill-learned.
Honor you’ll show me or you’ll die tonight”,
then came the end to me who once was knight.

Gilding frames his head.
Now we speak of light and dark —
Salomé dances.

The Taking of Christ by M. Caravaggio (oil on canvas, detail) c. 1602 — “The Taking of Christ” by *Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610)* (oil on canvas, detail) c. 1602

Postscript

M. Caravaggio is, in part, a response to my reading Andrew Graham-Dixon’s wonderful biography, “Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane”

Since childhood, I’ve had a powerful reaction to any image created by Caravaggio and I wanted to express my deep love for his work and my heartache at his untimely passing. When childhood heroes are hoisted on their own petard, some part of the edifice of childhood crumbles and this poem is a reaction to his falling façade.

M. Caravaggio is told, in what Michael O’Siadhail (Pronounced mee-hawl o’sheel) calls a “saiku” in his brilliant work “The Five Quintets.” The haiku before and after each sonnet act as a kind of time machine or a means to comment on what is to follow or what has just past.

M. Caravaggio contains four sonnets: in the first and third I ask some questions and in the second and fourth Caravaggio replies.

M. Caravaggio may become the first of a series of biographical poems of artists — a kind of retelling of Giorgio Vasari’s “The Lives of the Artists” in poetic form.

Poetic license was taken in the manner of Caravaggio’s death. No one truly knows how he met his end.

I have stayed away from posting for about a year — twenty-nineteen’s “haiku year” took a toll. I have not been idle though. As I hope this poem will attest. I pray this year will be your banner year and all good will be showered upon you and yours.

Chalk portrait of Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni, circa 1621

haiku, haiku-year, poems, poetry, sonnet

“Cupid laid by”

Love’s a pool so strong
that it cures men’s maladies.
My cure’s in her eyes. ¹

Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep:— Sonnet CLIII – William Shakespeare ↩

Sonnet CLIII

Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep:
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;
I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,
And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,
But found no cure: the bath for my help lies
Where Cupid got new fire--my mistress' eyes.