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.