Ekphrastic Poems II

3.20
Angle of shadow of the tree's trunk slanting
diagonally across sunlit plane of east-facing
picket fence, web of bare branches in relation
to thin blue sky behind it. Bare-chested young
man taking black and white photos of man in blue
shirt standing in 4th þoor window, bedroom wall
through which techno beat continues. The short-
haired girl in red jacket thinking color isn't
only emotional, woman in the chartreuse shirt
under brown sweater noting the curve of grass-
like green lines which come from Fra Angelico.
Man in maroon turtleneck recalling the French
took Lebanon and Syria after fall of the Ottoman
Empire, the English sticking the Scotsman's head
on spike. Parallel lines of small swells moving
in across the horizontal grey plane, the still
sunlit slant of the ridge in the left corner.

3.21
Black wrought-iron gate on door in a white wall
to the left of a dull grey concrete plane, two
rows of six black-framed windows in the brick
wall opposite it. Man in green shirt waking
from dream of blond woman in blue car stopping
to ask why he didn't call, ceramicist asking why
he never read his child "The Highway Man." Girl
with red shearling hat pulled down over her eyes
sitting on a step below a green front door, man
walking into a white room telling her to think
of relation between landscape and abstraction.
Fabritius' goldfinch perched on railing in front
of sunlit pale yellow wall, which seems to shift
as silver-haired woman in green scarf steps back
to see it. Shrill small brown birds camouflaged
in dark green leaves, white silence of the egret
stalking across the shallows of lagoon mudflats.

3.22
Silhouette of bare branches moving across grey-
white sky in right corner, lines of telephone
wires draped across a two story brick-orange
building on left. Woman with a Swiss accent
readjusting paragraphs in Stein manuscript, man
with blue-eyed dog pulling book with four-color
cover from top shelf. Half of a pale blue oval
adjacent to a small dark red rectangular shape
from which red and white lines curve to floor,
short-haired girl in a blue sweater standing
against the white wall. Man in red and blue
plaid shirt noting that Cézanne's bathers is
about blue, Mondrian thinking painting comes
before theory. Dark green rectangular shape
above lighter green shape in larger dark blue-
green background, width of four vertical lines
behind which buildings disappear into white sky.

3.23
Blue-grey light coming into the sky above still
dark plane of ridge, unseen birds in the field
in relation to sounds arriving from somewhere
across it. Man in yellow ochre shirt noting
apparent illumination of a pale yellow wall
adjacent to darker yellow wall on the left,
asking why it took 100 years to figure out
perspective. Malevich wanting to organize two-
dimensional surface in order to shift viewer's
perception, woman in dark blue sweater seeing
two separate reds as part of same red. Dark-
haired woman in white coat noting emotional
resonance of man at the microphone's voice,
which seems to be saying what takes place.
Thickness of horizontal yellow line suggesting
the white of the square that isn't there, pair
of vertical black lines crossing a white plane.

3.24
Blurred shadows of tobacco plant leaves on white
wall to the left of the unmade yellow and blue
bed, which disappear as sun rises into cloud
above ridge. Tall thin girl in a purple top
walking across white floor from middle bedroom,
man looking at blue and black planes in Popova's
painterly architectonics. Woman in blue sweater
thinking of principles of repose and disturbance
in visual terms, certain elements being constant
while others precipitate their own destruction.
The man in a green shirt seeing actual event
described by the woman to his right in red
corduroy...