We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

25.4.19

Capturing This

Capturing This

Two Chained Monkeys

TWO MONKEYS by BRUEGHEL (1562)


Why, I wondered, would Breughel,
that artist of rich colour –
those deep, throbbing reds,
those eerie greens 
and light-filled blues –
choose to paint this dim-lit scene
of brown and murky yellow?

Perhaps one should allow
for the passage of time 
and human dirt
encrusting ancient works of art
with a darkening veneer ...
but even so, his others
are not like that.

Yet the curved shapes
of window frame and beasts
arrest and satisfy my eye;
and the sails and towers
in the pale light beyond,
pointing up to the clouded sky.
So I start to see.

I start to see 
that there is much to see,
further and further
in those tiny, misty details:
a world out there. Then the eyes
of one monkey keep catching
my reluctant gaze.

I come back to 
those forefront monkeys 
I've been trying to ignore.
The other who does not look 
anywhere but at the ground,
is hunched uncomfortably.
Finally, I see the chain.

Once seen, it stands out.
I look at the narrowness 
of that stone sill, from side 
to side, although it comes 
some way back into the room,
and imagine them held there
looking out through the thick pane.

But they are not looking out.
They are avoiding that.
How they must miss the trees!
Nothing here to get a grip on,
nothing to swing from, even if
they had space and were unchained.
And only Breughel to perceive.


Written for Poets United's Midweek Motif: An Ekphrastic Poem.

Note: Looking more closely, I think it's a wooden sill, but 'stone' works better for the poem than anything else I can come up with yet.

10 comments:

  1. So sad, those short chains, those long captive lives. Sigh.

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  2. I kept going back to the painting as you described it and you're right.. once you "see" the chains..you can't see anything else.

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  3. Love how you've captivated all the details. The chain has made all the difference.

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  4. I felt like I was taken on a journey to see the painting through your eyes Loved it

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  5. In fact that wooden floor is worse than stone as it will absorb urine and faeces and be offensive to them. I always wonder why humans are considered 'humane" when they are clearly not. The chain is but one of several cruelties imposed upon them as they wait for death.

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    1. The thing I didn't include, though I might in a rewrite, is the detail that sank in last of all, after I'd posted the poem – the two birds flying free. Breughel surely intended the obvious contrast. Yay, Breughel!

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  6. Funny what the eye sees--and ow much more the artist's eyes see--I loved this--it is so emotive--

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  7. I'm so glad you looked so carefully at this painting. Your poem not only brings out the detail of lacking color but the sadness and cruelty of the monkey's captivity. You also captured the sadness of the painting of creatures in chains. Though sad, your poem enthralled me and helped me appreciate and feel the details more deeply. So well done!

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  8. Brueghel had a taste for the strange, and these chained monkeys are a strange subject for a painting, is my take on it.

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    Replies
    1. In the sky outside the window are two birds flying free, a detail shown clearly. I cannot believe that the obvious contrast with the chained monkeys was unintentional on the part of the artist.

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