After Reading of Renewed Interest in the Post-Impressionists

Calm and beauty, sleep and obsolescence,

the tendencies of Orpheus, now well

up from the depths of dreams of innocence,

released from toil, like rats from soil in hell:

a momentary yawn and loss of focus, bell

and clapper failing to connect, the grip

releases, fingers unfold, and a spiral shell

of silence turns the hours back, a slip

into blackness, from which old knowledge wails

familiar lamentations lovers dread

to hear, each note a dreadful pomegranate pip,

until the winds of chance dig up the dead

and deep gashes crust over into scars

red as the dawn beyond the death of wars.