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)

12.4.25

Anonymous Recovery

 (Wooden statue whittled by a mental patient)


1.

You think I am vain, 

like the lovely boy

gazing in the pool

at his own reflection.


He lost his head,

didn’t he? – his pretty head –

obsession becoming

a kind of self-rejection.


But when I fixed

on my own image,

it was to recreate it 

for introspection.


I wanted to see

what my soul looked like,

not to show you but myself …

and found it all dejection.


2.


Skinny bugger, 

isn’t he?

I made him out of 

apple wood,

dragging it from where 

it fell.


I carved and smoothed

and shaped

rudimentary knees, face, 

tiny genitals.

(I know he doesn’t

seem well.)


3.


He’s not looking

up or out.

His arms cling

to his sides.

Maybe he doesn’t 

know any better?


What is the 

satisfaction of being?

It’s apparent

he doesn’t know.

His life is not freedom

but a fetter.


4.


Now that I’ve made him,

there are those who suppose

he is me.


It might be so – yet, is he not

something alien? 

You tell me!


Now that I have cut him 

off from myself, I see

what is me.


I’m lighter than smoke

dancing on air, no more weight

stuck to me.



NaPoWriMo Day Twelve.


Based on this item in the American Visionary Art Museum. (The link takes you to the image and also the story behind it.)



4 comments:

  1. Sad and beautiful, both the poem and the art. And io like how you bring in Narcissus without mentioning him by name.

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  2. OMG, this is fabulous ekphrasis. I love that you wrote it in the creator's voice. I hope lots and lots of people get to read this.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you. Potentially hundreds, LOL, at the NaPoWriMo site, and on facebook. But whether they all will ... I am usually not fond of my own attempts at ekphrasis, but the NaPo prompts this year have been so exciting! Perhaps it depends on the nature of the art one is using for inspiration.

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