MAGRITTE (1898-1967)

 Heads are shrouded like funeral urns,

A bowl of fruit becomes monumental,

Set in stone, as does a Stonehenge chair.

And pictures live within pictures, you see,

Anchored here by a cannonball

Or by a tuba which burns over there;

Another shatters as glass into shards of sky

And the sky recurs and recurs,

In an eyeball, in a tree, in a doorway, in a bird.

A woman in a forest, stately on horseback,

Moves through the lines, becomes one with a tree.

Seashores too, are everywhere -

On one lies a mermaid in reverse

And, out at sea, a schooner grows out of sea.

And you see the apple, the fish, the blood and the pipe.

 Over there it is raining umbrellas;

Here, men in bowler hats pour down.

You think this might be a joke –

An illusion or gimmick, perhaps,

But somehow you seem to know

This is not a hype.

Owls and doves grow as plants

On scenic mountain tops by a lake.

Trees of a single, gigantic leaf bloom,

A bird is turning into a flying bouquet

And a boulder floats beneath a sickle moon.

Look here: the artist is painting his reflection

Reversed in a wonderland looking glass

And photographing himself at the easel

As he paints himself again and again and again.

 Watch here as he paints Georgette into flesh;

There, another woman stands on a beach

Before a sky of bathroom tiles,

Lowering a robe with one hand,

Cupping a pebbled nipple in the other

As she turns her pearled neck

To lick the curve of a shoulder.

Elsewhere, other breasts and pudenda

Glow through otherwise disembodied gowns

And, in portraits, replace eyes and mouths.

Then a candle ejaculates flame

And wax in a dark nest of eggs.

And, sooner or later,

The head on your shoulders

Will burst into a radiant sphere.

 Now, see here:

In the desert beyond,

Lies the alabaster tomb

Beneath a day burning down.

The train pulls steaming into the fireplace

And a lion sits sphinx-like on a bridge

Where the man in a winged tuxedo

Leans patiently over the parapet.

Outside the house, a lamp is lit under a tree,

Is reflected in a pool left by rain.

And upstairs windows shine out

As night rises under a bright blue sky.

Unreflected, clouds and shadows gather.

Inside, Madame’s coffin reclines elegantly

On the chaise longue by the candelabra,

The hem of her dress hanging like a shroud.

(2015) 

Another of the flurry of poems about painters that came in the late summer of 2015. Since finishing this one, I've realised that I must have imagined a Magritte picture of raining umbrellas as mentioned in the second verse, because I can find no trace of such an image anywhere. I am, however, leaving it in the poem - in the interests of Surrealism, you understand. The picture is on of several from the early 1930s which Magritte - with typical inscrutability - titled 'The Human Condition',