Five themed poems by Lisa Nickerson

Five poems
by Lisa Nickerson

romanticism during wartime
(Inspired by Jacques-Louis David's The Death of Marat and Jean-Baptiste Greuze's A Girl with a Dead Canary)

Marat in his bloodied muslin keeps arriving
just like Ashbery said
but who has painted O'Hara
for he's dead! he's dead!

Would you care to come to Baghdad
to gather up the scattered bone
and stack them neat with codes and receipts
we'll leave the kittens and dyed muslin for someone else, lest
that might be too much

for Us, for Us.

Sweet Moliere, the Learned Ladies do know
what it is (that) makes good Po-
etry
but little Henriette ah well
she's stuck weeping over the frail and ex-canary.

######################

A Small Crisis of Creation
(Inspired by Möbius Strip II by M. C. Escher)

The birth of a man is a thing of splendid cruelty.
He is torn to pieces between a grandiose past and a dramatic fture.
He does not accept life except by opening his mother's side.

--- Eli Faure

there is only this:
Sex:Birth:Love:Sex:Death

linear & circular
Numbers diced into pieces
by decimals. Fragmentation of
S/E/L/F. birthdays and semi-annual insurance bills
half years and January beginning the number 1.

fractions cut across the vast plain
of the Whole. never wholly kiss you. The mouth gapes
sweet water on tongues unsucked
a strange sensual expression left unsaid

Ants on Escher's mobius strip march
into infinity in a confined space. Pushing
the molecules pressing (Manet) one color against each other
"in Nature there are no lines" -- don't you see the horizon?
Cut the canvas in 1/2
with black YIN
YANG

Me I THEY
You WE he She
Always = Us

There must always be a killer - pick the color and the blood with run.

#####################

Ukiyo-e

The screen slaps the wall
Utamaro is late.

"Yasashiku, Silly Girl! Why have you set out
these apricots?"

His fingers sparkle with mica.

####################

Ikebana lessons

"the arrangement must live in the moment"

We study shoka
our vases
tall and slim.

"Mizugiwa rises from the water's edge up
toward Heaven."

I place the peony bud too close against the pine
Utamaro catches me.

#####################

Marichiko

My lover cannot afford to stay
the Night.

At Dawn, I find his plate of sembei crumbs
and press them past my lips
like a hungry Cuckoo.

Artist's note: The preceding series of Japanese flavored poems were all inspired by the paintings from the Floating World by Utamaro and other Japanese artists of that time period.

Author bio:

Lisa Nickerson's poems have appeared in Clockwise Cat, The Cerebral Catalyst and upcoming in Snow Monkey's Spring 2008 print journal. Her poem "le jardin for ezra pound" won an Honorable Mention in the Florida Chapter of the Gwendolyn Brook's Poetry Competition and was published in Revelry 2006 & 2007. She lives on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.