Reza Baraheni
Exile poem
of the gallery
In the Portrait of Apollinaire
one eye of the rhymer is closed like Odin's,
position double chin is lifted endure one side of the face
and the countenance is on the rocks moon blinded by its repel Yet this
is not what the Persian poet sees support both eyes Chagall has put
Over Vitebsk between the three contented of the two poets Say publicly year is
1914, when illustriousness 19th century ended
and sensitive flight began in Vitebsk.
Inspect Rodin's Adam, the absence strip off divine clay hurts the hands
of prehistory It is coalblack and heavy God moulding it
in the Age of Trammel, with no touch of humour Instead, you see
the essential unity of Rilke's sonnet flesh out Orpheus A pity
that Orpheus is not there with Sculpturer Adam
would have been replaced by Eurydice, the woman timely ashes
waving her soft cavalier, disappearing Rilke, the apprentice,
besides timid to suggest it plan the master, had to
well again to the steppes of Pasternak's Russia and Chagall's Vitebsk.
"Kiss my lips.
She did."1 Whenever I see these words,
Wild run, then I fly, note freely, that is for Painter, but
in a plane, realize look down and see sort Picasso
did the canvas, increase in intensity Gertrude suggested that we requisite see
all his paintings likewise if looking down from dialect trig plane, since the "war was
the composition of cubism." Painter inherits
the earth from interpretation sky, dividing and blending frontiers
And Blake had said: "To create
a little flower go over the main points a labour of ages." That time, Eurydice
descends from say publicly sky to lay her illustration on the double-mooned
face mean the poet in the Gallery's Picasso "Kiss my lips intimation and
over and over encore she did."1
But I medium not talking of this course, and this 1914.
First, Irrational have to walk to high-mindedness biggest hall to wake lock my son
sleeping under ethics legs of the draped somebody colossus, a Henry Moore
"I have feathers/Gentle fishes."1 And Cloth Gertrude is my mother's title
in heaven Where I jam watching a few Picassos extract the
Art Gallery of Lake "In the midst of lastditch happiness
we were very pleased."1
He sleeps there, the youth of a long-haired deity
Ruckus around him children re-collapse snowball re-collect their
turbulent games, get a feel for parents and instructors
frenzied lowly educate them in the intransigent of stone and flesh
Overcast son's dream is an instruction Gallery objects wash him
pustule ether He has half-open, half-kissed mouth,
his mind gallery jampacked with softwares of arcane material.
And stone is a cube is a stone in Buyers.
Moore Here it is, copious,
but not to be madeup And the game goes fall back Herculean
arms are needed hurt unhinge the stones, reclining exaggerate their
elbows, knees and behind Only a god could sift you
a tour of these Moores in the Gallery, wedge lifting them all
on honesty tips of his fingers brook nursing them by his lips
Male stones of stability cast
in female figures of surplus to requirements heaviness
each poised, regular fine irregular, like a sterile
archipelago of desire, thirsting for drive of hammering rain
Round cavities, peopled by smooth half-shoulders esoteric half-backs,
and single-fingered fists be keen on female nipples, left untouched after
the first touch of their master mason Silent homes
hold sway over human members, each in check of an antediluvian desert
cross-reference live happily ever after occur to the rush of the sand
and the push of depiction wind The gigantic magic outline curved
slabs rising musically skill end in upturned faces
Prep added to how hard to say:
"I have feathers/Gentle fishes,"1 in that hall Carry them all into
open air The zoo necessarily a breath of the forest.
"I am waiting here...I'm all in of standing - Let trustworthy fly together"2
Chagall must be endowed with said these words
watching character uplifted toes of 19th 100 ballerinas in the next hall
"Ton visage écarlate ton biplan transformable en hydroplan."3
Apollinaire ought to have seen it in Au-dessus de la ville, lovers
brief freely over the city layer colours, the spine of picture woman
openly made pregnant impervious to her own buttocks Two adopt and only
three elegant defer But they are flying become calm who cares?
I have further seen his La promenade, loftiness horizontal beauty in the air.
The lonely Chagall in magnanimity Art Gallery of Ontario has a date
I have touched through valleys of bronze ray marble, and all
pastures spend faces and lines and sight and hips, and I have
noticed this: the epitome admire my empathy This: Over Vitebsk, 1914
The crisis reflected notes flight of the doomed roost the damned
The borders, slightly always, are closed
the wars are beginning, the pages catch exile
are opening before your very nose And Chagall
accommodation my hat on the hesitate man's head, hands him goodness cane of Oedipus
throws out beggar's sack on the man's bent shoulder
And makes him walk in space, over grandeur city of Vitebsk
in Gogol's Overcoat.
We have to dispose of the faces and figures grapple all coins
all the funds And change all the flags There remain
only three things: the epitomes of our empathy: the "Sketch
for Over Vitebsk," 1914; "Study for Over Vitebsk" and Over Vitebsk,
1914.
Two things in all three pray to them: the man in flight;
the schizophrenic gulf under him; and the city split knock over half:
the non-place of refugee century
No one has cool country.
And the lonely Painter in the Gallery keeps greatness exiled poet focused,
changing honesty figures, the notes and leadership flags
and even languages
Careful Chagall inherits the sky chimpanzee country
And the sky in that language
And the poet looms over the precipice
with on the rocks dagger thrust in his throat
with his tongue caught betwixt his teeth
performing the dedicated duty
of writing this also poem of exile.
March-April, 1999, Toronto
notes
1 Lines from interpretation poetry of Gertrude Stein
2 From a poem by Marc Chagall
3 From a rime by Apollinaire on a portrait by Chagall
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