1018 - three Bamberg poems

 

20.x.22

1018

3.292

three Bamberg poems

 

 

industrial dawn

 

with tank treads and truck

lamps of smoke and steam

then sun

as if night ran aground

day unexpected

 

out of frame

from pale

and in the coming blue

just as rumoured

birds are discovering flight

 

ekphrastic for 

Cranach’s ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’

Residenz, Bamburg

 

she on his sword

he, blood robed and hosed

and even codpiece

 

a ruined castlescape archipelago

that’s just for perspective

 

upfront forest, tombstone

it’s all happening here

 

a little fountain falls

 

see how they look past each other?

it’s what death will do

 

what curls!

and hers now chains

eyes cast down for doom

his for heaven raised

 

 

 

 

Bamberg smile

at the imperial cathedral

 

there’s always someone you can blame

 

stiff stone choirs

eroded lions

 

romanesque, gothic, baroque

this persists

 

apostles stand on the shoulders of prophets

breezes wear some skeletal

 

Eve grows her own figleaf

and she’ll be a forest

 

the holy ones are crowned with castles

with churches, walled towns

 

chains of hell

and the damned show their teeth

howling with grin and bear

 

and damn the blamed

there’s comfort in that

 

ring bells till time is gone

 

who has a choice who to be breaks hearts

this is in order to become

 

as if unbelief were taught for a choice

 

and a devil takes out the Jew’s eye

who won’t see’s forever damned