Look, dearest Andrew!
(with your beloved ghost eyes).
Look here!
The cow skull hangs on the wall,
nude as a new babe although
not soft, not warm, not chubby.
No, it looks like an elongated face
with tiny eyes and a huge open scream.
Turn it over and it still screams,
but the extra bones on the underside
are ornate, like frilly trimmings.
These eyes are high and slanted
over pinpoint nostrils,
and the scream this side
is angry.
The lateral view
has a long, thin nose
like a pointing finger
and teeth that hang
like the fringe on a curtain.
Here, the eyes
are cavernous.
Their sightless gaze might dark-swallow
one who looks back.
But this is the bare skull.
Her paintings are phantasmagorical
in the vast book I bought
– do you remember? –
in May 1999, in SanFran on Pier 39,
where you’d dreamed of taking me
our only afternoon there,
on a holiday weekend
so we couldn’t post it home
to Australia.
Between flights out, luggage already
checked in and weighed,
I slung it in a brand new cabin bag
over my shoulder
to re-board,
trying to to look as if it wasn’t
weighing me down.
Like smuggling something unauthorised
onto a space shuttle.
The book. Actual size a little larger than my laptop,
14-and-a-half by 11 inches or 36-and-a-half by 28 cm..
View the museum exhibit here.
Written for NaPoWriMo 2025, Day Two.
Also shared (off-prompt) with Friday Writings #171 at Poets and Storytellers United.
A wonderful response, Rosemary, and I love that you too picked up on the bones in the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. I was going to go with the cow skull, but then went with the bald eagle skull. I agree about the ‘tiny eyes and a huge open scream’. And I love that your poem took you on a journey too.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it, Kim.
DeleteWonderful❣️
ReplyDeleteGlad you like it.
DeleteI love the tour through the bone, especially the different perspectives, and so too the way you bring it home, just like the book. Good stuff!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Eric.
Deleteah, you and ghostly Andrew might have enjoyed the Exploratorium in SF, Rosemary, a hands-on science exhibit where once I palmed cow eyes from a bucket full of them. ~
ReplyDeleteThat might have been a bit too hands-on for me!
DeleteThe way this poem unfolds, the conversation, the description of the skull, the throw back to the memory.. a perfect representation of how we experience things: with people present or not, with memories, with all senses. Beautiful and even more so as it is written in the thick of Napowrimo.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rajani, for such high praise. (I don't know that we're in the thick of, yet. Get back to me halfway through the month and I might be writing very bad verse and feeling that I'm insane!)
DeleteExcellent, beguiling and thoughtful poetry
ReplyDeleteOh, what a lovely description! Thank you.
DeleteWell-worth the smuggling into the plane! Not only for the re-rereading and re-looking at it, relishing in the memories as well as the beauty of the art, but also as the inspiration for this fine poem!
ReplyDeleteYes, I have cherished it all these years since. So glad you enjoyed the poem.
DeleteGreat tribute and poetic description grounded in place. I had to look up the word phantasmagorical because it is so phantasmagorical. It looks like a made up wore. But aren't they all?
ReplyDeleteGood point; yes they are, of course. Glad you like the poem.
DeleteI've done that -- enormously heavy carry on, trying to hold it nonchalantly as if it just had a raincoat.
ReplyDelete*Grin*
DeleteI enjoyed the exploration of the skull and had to laugh at 'Like smuggling something unauthorised onto a space shuttle' Fantastic poem
ReplyDeleteThanks, Marja, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
DeleteWhat a wonderful remembering - personal and yet the bigger picture as well with the description of the painting - and thank you for your kind comment at mine - Jae
ReplyDeleteAh well, it's no secret that I love and admire your poetry – and through that, you too.
DeleteA word and time carved into memory as if by elves. No better way than phantasmagorical to describe the art and personal moment, arriving together at a serendipitous place.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Such a unique and extraordinary artist!
DeleteI appreciated this view of O' Keefe's work through your (and Andrew's) eyes. I find her art very mesmerizing and inspiring too.
ReplyDeleteI think she's totally wonderful, and unique.
DeleteEnjoyed this a lot!
ReplyDeleteOh, good!
Delete