Beef
by Carmine Giordano
In the Jewish museum
the artist Soutine
has splayed
a hunk of beef
bleeding across a canvas.
The carcass pulsates
with inside brutality -
its splattered abjection
horrifies
make us uneasy -
for this is not the beef
nor of the beef.
Gestures pigments
and colors
are the subjects here.
The artist shows us
his kishkes
impasto and thick -
his strokes
writhing out his tumult
in carmine crimson
and cochineal.
The steer is hieroglyph -
the immaterial force
of the material world
hoisted on a gambrel.
Poets
do this too
you know -
giving us always
one thing
for the other.
* * *
In the Harbor
by Carmine Giordano
the statue is made of copper
a cast metaphor
a visualized abstraction
framed like a woman
one hundred fifty-one feet tall
two hundred twenty-five tons heavy
wrapped in a robe
holding up a torch
by way of light and invitation
standing on a pedestal
in the middle of the ocean
supposing a notion of the way
human beings might want to live
free in their equal essentials
unshackled of accidental difference
has a crown on her head
like the mythic goddesses
beaconing wisdom democracy and law
Grecian Athena Roman Minerva
one tumbled in the Parthenon
the other demolished on the Aventine
like all great and noble ideas
unnourished and under siege -
lost in the rubble of time.
* * *
Street Scene: Manhattan
by Carmine Giordano
If he had been poor dog stray
there might have been more pity
than this for his being human
lying there in the midday city street
his feet raw and swollen
under the newspaper sheets.
What has happened to the heart?
Where has the Nazareth Carpenter gone?
The fish and loaves lie undivided in the bowl.
No one turns the other cheek.
The people’s ears are plugged -
they come and go
talking to their machines.
* * *
Ending Summer
by Carmine Giordano
The summer roses are tired
on the garden branches.
A few of them have fallen.
The dolphin fountain is dry.
The house sparrows
have fattened themselves for the cold
and the yard squirrel has stashed
his store of berries under the eaves.
We’re at the end of a season.
Past the pale green purples
of the dried hydrangea heads
buds have peaked
and tightened on the woody stems
for the long slog of winter.
They’ve readied themselves
for next year’s tug of spring.
The air has taken a long deep breath
of sorrow and anticipation.
Where do we go
we wonder -
where do we go from here?