C l a i r e D e V o o g d —

Painting

I wish it was the 20th century 

The spirit of the times 

Says. I am in my cell 

In a grid 

Metal, plastic, concrete 

Tubes of lights

A fantastical 

Garage 

Rises before me

Blue-grey and sparkling after

The battlement of ice.

My eye I’d press 

To service to

Extrude from this landscape

Its elusive beauty

Like a pitch

Or clear oil.

Then I’d close it 

Brush the balm

Onto its lid and, saying

Spirit, grant me vision

Be blessed

In tourist cities this year

A thousand stores have opened

Inviting you 

The passerby, to bow

Over a stout, grey 

Box, with a little window

Fitted to your eye

Behind the window are cameras 

Which capture the intricate

Galaxy

Of your iris 

Its unique jewel box

With the

Clusters and whorls

Spokes, agates and

Surprising novas.

They hope that you 

Will be so enraptured by 

The vision they have given you

Of your eye

You pay to have a print made 

To bring home and 

Hang on your wall. 

Wherever you go 

There you are

Says Aristotle.

Myself I’d like to 

See again the boats 

Mounded with palm nuts

On the Xanil river

The men, tired

Sweaty, who cut them

From the trees 

Now unloading them

Into trucks 

At the end of the day

To drive to Tuxtla 

To sell to companies

To make the oil. I 

Follow its river here.

Wegmans.

The river a pale

Chalky aqua

Slow and warm 

And the banks tall

Black and red.

Would two palms grow

Where my eyes had been. 

Painting

On the seaboard

The cities 

Are crawling

Soon 

They will merge 

Becoming

One long

Festoon 

Of animate

Lights

The city 

Of the seaboard 

Will hold 

Cornfields 

Orchards 

And beaches 

Within it, as well as 

Its billion 

Lives, making near

Infinite 

Things 

Happen, year

By year.

The years 

Will fly

Or float by, on their

Devastating and

Indefatigable

Course. 

We 

Of this century 

Are those who will 

Know how to 

See it 

The city, spread 

Voluptuous and

Bright

Stripped bare 

As 

Clouds do

From above and

At a great distance.

Our eye, genius

Of the times 

Have this talent 

Painting

The eye of the painter 

Was a huge disorderly sponge 

Eating what the tide blew through it. 

Slovenly

Thresher 

Amiable

Sponge 

EYELAND

Declares a sign 

Holiday Hair

Good Spirits

Westside Ballroom

Over an empty

Snowy field. 

Tree

Farm

Our

Roads are corridors 

Of words

Mostly cheerful 

Doing their pointing thing 

Pointing here and there

Often at nothing or 

Somewhere back

There, over the

Millennium’s

Cusp

Tin

Kettles

Clattering

Painting 

Box

For oranges

Cardboard

Empty 

Upside down 

In snow

In median

Three holes 

For lifting, inverted like

That 

Make face

Expression

Dismayed 

As if

Watching traffic 

Late for

An appointment

Trying to cross, eternally

Disappointed, and, moreover

Disappointed

At the general

State of things

The world

The road

Snow looking

Spray gunned 

Coffee colored 

We live in serious times

It says

With its drooping

Mouth.

Man Ray

Was a serviceable painter but 

A great alchemist 

Something reassuring 

About that 

I think

To myself

Then

When I think about 

The last

Five hundred years 

It’s a shock any of us are ok, people

Generation 

By generation, laboring 

Halfway up

To love 

And falling in the

Thresher

.