Eight Poems
Things Belong to Her and She Belongs to Other Things
In memoriam, Cora Cohen
The great charm of grief lies in giving the hint
that when the world screws up its face
to spit out verses you will later whisper
the eye is only a blind messenger
longing to perceive an indifferent cloud or shadow or holy body
the great charm of grief lies in giving this hint
to which you were endlessly alert though knowing
the eye is only a blind messenger
though not in that moment on the look-out
for an indifferent cloud or shadow or holy body to perceive
and lost in the timeless air
to which you were so alert
the eye is only a blind messenger
though not at this moment on the look-out
performance of this incompossible space postponed indefinitely
you’re lost in the timeless air
The Not One
A face made of stained glass or written
in a code I may never learn to read
you wear your beauty without using it
my cheap eyes drive you to despair
here comes that formal feeling
winter with its unexpected shape
more naked now than when I got here
I enter the museum of broken husbands
but what is a persimmon anyway
the word at least tastes delicious
it carves its sculpture of a night we slept through
without dreaming of it
a noise with an object hidden inside
you kept trying to sketch it from different angles
when love makes the picture wrong
then where is everything else
Cora Cohen, Drawing 4 Yellow, 2011. Acrylic, Flashe, pigment, on dropcloth. 37 x 53 inches. Cora Cohen.
A Moth in the Louvre
For Tanya Merrill
Let the lighting be dimmed of course
not switched off completely
you hardly recognize yourself
the fluttering you hear is only your heart
conferred by some power you have yet to imagine
and I am not at liberty to disclose
our modernity gets worse with age
likewise our discontent, a hidden dawn
its mythic color void of shadow
look for it somewhere behind your back
this strange and momentary throbbing
that nothing you can do can kill
phototaxis is the name of the game
and never mind the deficient image resolution
we don’t normally hear from the universe
this distant rumbling of turbulent pigments
flicker effect: in the stillness of a painting
a motion too quick for a single-aperture eye to see
the future encircles us
and yes the time flutters by
and will persist until someone notices
its spectral outline
Alone in the House
The paintings crowd in on you
like bunches of delphinium
dismantled and redistributed
as the remains of a disaster
yet to occur, pale and inaugural
everything waits undecided inside this stale room
its fierce aromas of licorice and bubblegum,
overripe peaches and cigarette ash
pretending nothing’s amiss
the lie that exactly duplicates the truth
my wan science blind to the one face that knows me
the first witness to understand fully why
my clothes keep getting emptier
I just prefer being wrong
a cry the others keep repeating throughout the day
Tanya Merrill, Our family portrait/Dancing over the town, 2024. Oil and graphite on linen, 62 x 70 inches. 303 Gallery.
Blues for Someone
Because you never stopped stopping traffic
or my wandering mind
I’d call you God’s gift to God
but darling, your bruise might be showing
so what if I’m somewhere past the clouds
whatever I was about to tell you
might still have been God’s own truth
e.g., that love was never anyone’s secret
let sand seep through outstretched fingers
fine and slow as sunlight or honey
your eyes two open windows
whose shades I wish to draw
what’s seen remains transparent
however many pounds of earth the sun entombs
in the suddenty of forgotten beauty, still
a solar joy desires what it always has
Day Before Leap Day
Today feel unaccountable time coming on
to start flouting the rule of thirds
you (in the sense of I?) become an indiscriminate entity
avoiding clear-cut resolution
when we should be out walking, wandering
the world already here
it recurs rhapsodically
leads your thoughts into the dark heart of beauty
oh never say so!—abandon ideas that delay
your just right amount of maximum
this meager artifact obvious enough to hide everything
everything intercalary and everything else
Cora Cohen, Counterpoint, 2017. Ink, marker, oil, oil pastel, silkscreen ink on linen, 51 x 61 inches. Cora Cohen.
Baby White Noise Machine
My tired gaze torn to pieces
may shelter in the ruins
of a bombed-out decade
another sacrifice
to the tender goddess of Paphos
meanwhile the pale moon you’re looking at
is mine
the far side of the window already dark
night and art are equal
art and night are equal
where the past takes revenge on the living
this existence in the eyes of others
is well-known as overrated and besides
the best music always comes from somewhere else
The Heaviest Doll in the World
If unhappy memory’s as good as any other
this time or another is the hardest
choice or none at all
this face, a calm ceramic mask
eyes thrash like startled pigeons
at once grunting and cooing
and in touch with the most distant happiness
yes, yes, yes signals a dismissive hand
if the crashing sea could hear you
we’d stay on earth to catch its alien reminiscences
and if there were really any silence after music
we’d hear each other there too
Tanya Merrill, In bed, 2024. Oil and graphite on linen, 48 x 72 inches. 303 Gallery.
