The castle.
It's as if all of them, archangels, apostles,
and the crowned and bleeding Christ
are blown in a wind of light, broken glass,
and fractured color.
God presides over the killing of the holy man.
His mother wears the dead body as if she were the cross.
I choose St George for my patron.
The necessary killing of the beast a two tiered project.
First, the sword raised again and again
to pierce reptilian muscle, then the brush and chisel
picked up to sanctify the slaughter.
The limbic brain and its attendant serotonin
and oxytocin turning violence into art.
I choose chamber music filling the parlor of the Lobkowicz
palace.
The first violinist a thin young man, sandpaper of day
old beard, tuxedo trousers, shirt, tie, no jacket.
He leans into Dvorak's lento, the long narrow bruise
on his neck, a flag I think his lover has left, unexplored
territory.
Until I see the stained glass or two
from the neck of the second violinist,
a woman with porcelain tight face.
Though her features soften when she
meets the eyes of the cellist, melody echoing between them.
The instrument has wounded them.
Its gently warped edge the lover to which
they've bared their necks.
I choose lunch with the Hollywood makeup artist,
a student in my class, and we sit
in the sun of the Poet's Cafe eating red cabbage, lentils,
crumpled sheep cheese, then strudel a life of lists nothing
ever complete.
Yes, there was Turkish coffee, maybe white beans and tomatoes
and we gossiped about the bad behavior
of the star, the sex goddess stepping from her trailer.
Is anyone going to get me my fucking cappuccino.
Because we love to know the artifice behind the art
as if any salt mouthed hard ass broad
could become the cultivated field
where a God would want to plant his seed.
I can make a great black eye, my lunch mate boasts.
I can do stitches, her eyebrows sculpted sharp
as a blackbird's wing.
When a new child comes everything
seems strange to him.
What, on the ground I have to lie?
Eat black potatoes, no, not I.