Page 44 - WTP VOl. VIII #6

37
Sonnet
There’s something absolute about the past.
The Trojan war and last night’s birthday dinner Are equally out of touch. We fool ourselves
That memory makes one close at hand, the other Dust and recited story. Candles blown out
Have disappeared. That word is like a zero, Absence, the view from the astronaut’s visor Surrounded by black (what?) between the stars. We cover up our loss with words for nothing,
And grammar gives us what facts can’t. Memory’s Unreal, an epic with a vague beginning,
No ending to speak of, lives written badly.
I know all this, but it doesn’t make a difference.
I touch your nightgown folded beneath the pillow.
First Circle
It’s only the living who need translators. The dead All speak the same language. In the first circle
Of hell, William Blake and Hokusai discuss
The finer points of line and color. I’d say
They walk and chat for hours, but in eternity
The clocks are unreliable. Blake disparages
Chiaroscuro, and Hokusai laughs, suggests
They bring Mr. Rembrandt into the conversation.
There’s no better next life to hope for than this one.
Still, the absence of walls makes it hard to hang paintings.
george franklin