Ravi Shankar
March 2010


Blue Circus, Oil Paint on Canvas, 1950
 

“Mine alone is the land
that exists in my soul
I enter it without a passport
like I do my own home”

            —Marc Chagall

 

Polymorphous saturation

oh blue

space, river without banks

speculum mundi

there’s a cock in the corner

banging a drum

fish with a sly eye

head a bed for supple coupling

horse in green, coquette

lovingly decapitated

            by cerulean shadow

mane preened

                        cooping up a man 

delirious moon on violin

flecked orb, yellow orchestral

depthless dancing

to horn, cello, accordion

            ring-wrangling Mediterranean nymph  

oh blue

lumière liberté

in a diagonal swath

a trapeze-artist swims

upside down, rouged

peacock crowned

belly round, breasts round

                        like a prayer 

that sometimes ends

                       in laughter

 

First appeared in Voluptuous Bristle (Finishing Line, 2010).

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