this is Jesus as they well may say
comes the principal from the cloakroom
with a wry pipe in its serious mouth
to enounce the laws of good principality
as his mother very Mary is a matron
calling all good huzzies to be patron
II the polar reaches
I have a scrim in mind in view of which
the scrolling of these landscape perspectives goes
by at a clip so fast
you'd think it ever was the landscape same as it ever
was
III the false ochers
I smear a stiffened brush across my painted scene
to see what it is for and behold what it does
what is done by it
IV semblances of reality
the good burghers
hold the fort and whistle
for the train that never comes
it is morale that keeps whatever comes
at bay
the visual illusionist counters
on the table are placed so and so
a tower of Babel undone
the eyes have it
the ayes
About the author:
Christopher Mulrooney has written poems and translations in Crate,
Chiron Review, Segue, Burning Leaf, The Drunken Boat, and Voices
Israel, criticism in Parameter, The Film Journal, and Pyramid, and a
volume of poetry called notebook and sheaves (America House, 2002).