Day 6:- prompt is ekphrastic in nature – but rather particular! Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem from the point of view of one person/animal/thing from Hieronymous Bosch’s famous (and famously bizarre) triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights.
All I could see was blue. So, i ignored the earthly delights and went heavenly instead.
here lies an ekphrastic thingy
from a snippet of the triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch
azured space powdered up high
so, the mountains aren’t true blue in close up
nor, i appeal, are they true mountains in close up
look, they’re peel & skins & diverse crockeries
chaotic crazinesses overlapped to look like what they’re not
frolicking on horizons tucked up, booked
jacketed & coated in pelts in different hues
indifferent to what you think
what you feel is blue
even so, below, there are pink & green constructs scented on puffs of
various prancing dancing warthogs & other such stuffs
look up
off in the distance, mountains are sprouting & casting off
shapes of water, in discs & leaves, blooming from heavings soft
on skies & lines from which are strung songs of suns and moons
look back
so, the trees, that seem real, aren’t trees at all
nor are they blue, either, are the whispered hushes that issue from them
nor are the bushes, ensued in blues, that call in small calls & scented glints
there are no bluebells no blue irises butterflies birthday cakes blue buntings blue jays blue eyes hiding from view
all this blue was painted in illusionary tones long long ago recedingly exceedingly
lapped at the landscape backed at murmurations capering so
lazy as amniotic calm in cobalts & Prussians, turquoises & Persians, watered down
perfumes
so, all there is to do is to lean all the way back surrender to this
in bliss and immerse yourself in this balm in this
tiny portion of a portrait that isn’t about blueness at all
April 6 2020
btw
