The Invisible Man (after the painting by Salvador Dalí) So, you see me half man, half what you had wished half imagined, half corporeal a yellowed-linen shroud draped around an empty chair drifting between consciousness and memory I am your memory I am your need I exist only in your eyes ambiguous to everyone but you. Dance You Monster to My Soft Song (after the painting by Paul Klee) I will play the fiddle and the pipes to lure you from your lair . I will mouth the words of fear you heard from the moment of your birth. I will echo the sounds of the cave in which you make your home the trees that hide you the mist that obscures your form: Dance, monster, dance, your final turn. Dance hard to my soft song before you burn and die. The Flesh Eaters (after the painting by Wiliam Baziotes) We eat your tender flesh your livers and hearts because they are good and contain what we need and desire to prolong our lives through the hardest of times into the sublime of the afterlife where we will have no sustenance other than the aftertaste of blood. |
Neil Ellman, a poet from New Jersey, has published numerous poems in venues throughout the world. Among his ekphrastic collections are chapbooks devoted to Dalí, Klee, Miró and Matta. He has been nominated twice each for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.