Beech wood & The menagerie
by Christopher Nield
[ poetry - august 08 ]
Beech wood
Klimt's beeches are so frozen and clear,
Sleepily austere in their crude, jewelly splendour,
Little nubs of red and green, turquoise, amber -
Glittering, like an Indian screen
Encrusted thick with colour.
Petticoated fingers oozed full of blue -
The blue coagulating -
A huge diffusing lens
All
Vagueness,
Roundness -
Alien sheer -
Without recognition,
A trace of shadow.
It has been said
They have no soul.
But they pulse
With such weird, cold
Profusion -
Glaring between
Two squinting eyes -
That blasted
In their oily shoal
They disappear -
Declare the void.
The menagerie
Tired Captain Pike lies thrashing in the cage.
Three aliens inspect his mind and yawn.
Their pale domes pulse with telepathic scorn
And plant an Eden free from human rage.
We chew our tea, entranced. Our little cave
Of images is full of what might be
Elsewhere. Now Adam wakes beneath a tree
But will not pluck his Eve and breed a slave.
We were the last Talosians: that race
Of dreamers, who died - what did Vina say? -
When dreams became narcotic? Yes, those words
Stick, though not one of us can summon words
To reminisce - redeem that final day
When God stared through the screen without a face.
