Cronus Devouring His Son

Cronus Devouring His Son

It is better to produce one image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous work

I.

Dying generations memorialized-

Poetry the modem for paint

Memory the modem of thought

And thoughts the solace in my deafness

For the dark and bewildering things I have seen.

II.

Remembering brings a frightful fit, knowing that

Somewhere there-

Under brick and woodwork,

Under that Baroque pantry floor

Somewhere there-

In the sudden sultry of the underdark

In that deathly still and sullen place-

Somewhere there I’d find him

That implaccable being, he denies all explication

Yet is the haunter of my vivid imagination

And the antagonizer of my waking nightmare.

III.

Upon his hideous frame

My torch drops from tremulous hands

Upon his blank, pitiless eyes

I am reduced to fear and trembling

And upon this recollection

I remember with utter surety

And with the stark vividity of reality

The inexorable human condition

Flecked upon his satin beard.