There Were No Sculptures
at the Socrates park their lots
taped off for seed and sod
there were no sculptures there
they had all gone home penned
to peer over a weed covered fence
were no sculptures there were
bent steel beams and painted rods
sheet metal cut outs and rusted knots
no sculptures there were no
chimes but three balls belled the silence
behind the vanes’ cupped ends
sculptures there were no sculptures
so we posed in their stead
“like a milder wren” you cut a ‘t’ from threat
and dubbed me “heart with tin gem”
Stendhal Syndrome | / Nude Study |
Not quite a swoon but like a spoon | Sun slab frames your limbs bleaches blue |
not quite snug in the spoon slot | sheets, skin be it black, olive, |
not quite lined with the other spoons | white in this light it holds no hue |
that silken sheen jars like a spot | just a shadow edge, hieroglyph |
light metal glint lodged behind eye | composed of pores on one man dark |
but not so harsh just a brown | dots the hairs torn from the chest |
body turning gold in my mind | white bumps cluster the ocher mark |
Sargent’s light, memory’s a crown | called nipple and shaft shadows rest |
not for the head but for the cleft | their lines against your packed abs where |
between pecs where skin burns white | on another a soft mat |
no rotunda study here left | curls against cheek, ear, a path flares |
free from myth and history’s bite | from the navel’s lower lip, black |
for the simple project called form | blaze a nest for the bulge and neck |
called awe pleasure and delight | of the sleeping pear. On some |
to view, to be viewed, senses stormed | the hairs spiral, contour thigh, check |
not just by a pose but by light | the calf and Achilles curve, thumb |
reversed in the eye: a pillow | the veins on each arch, the toe tufts. |
straddled head and gaze tilted | Lie back my many hued you |
not Sebastian’s long neck, pierced show | slide palm under skull base. Heave. Puff. |
but a Boston bell hop quilted | Hollows braced, sinuous sinew, |
in oil, Thomas E. McKeller | the side ridged, the clavicle raised |
and before him Nicola | A second shadow scratches |
D’Inverno and the colored | scruff, brow, shields your eyes from the rays, |
beach bodies water and cola. | frees the sleeper sand from lashes |
Balance your weight on slung back arms | as if probed by insect feelers |
thrust chest and shoulders rib cage | your blades flipped, ear teeth-tatted |
us V way to uncut inches. | stray hairs that escaped the razor |
Not a swoon. No. But breathless. Yes. | stray light balled in an off ballad. |