The Dark in Caravaggio’s Light

 

I.

 

Draperies are dreams of

what you cannot see.

You go to hear,

but empty flesh can

fold as well

as silk, and what you

hear is only

what you can not tell.

 

Remember cuts in boyhood dark,

“cantabile” rides down the brain,

or what you think as brain—

the violent (maybe violet) well

of little boys,

now not as young.

Nor is “cantabile” their song

but only men that watch

until they get it wrong.

 

“Marooned” is what

the younger think—

cantabile, arpeggio

of scholars,

setting  sound by sound

with shifting feet.

 

In German cities by the Rhine,

3:00 a.m. this morning,

they won’t seek

each other out.

All are housed

and can’t escape the room.

 

“Langsam,

Wozzeck,

langsam.”

 

Others scurry

in a musty street,

Baroque and dark,

congratulating selves

and no one eager here.

 

You’d know enough

to keep a space apart

and wait with dream pipes,

reimagine arpeggio,

cantabile,

as sound.

 

II.

 

Angels tipping heads

from side to side,

there is no madness

coming out of sleep,

blue veins, mahogany,

and rooms.

 

The law of objects

tells you you become

the things you see.

 

The are some pleasures,

obstinate or gone,

in these dark streets.

 

They never find you

home.

 

Arpeggio.

 

The law of objects

says, you become

the things you see.

 

 

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