Pope
And now for today’s optional prompt. W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” takes its inspiration from a very particular painting: Breughel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” Today we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that describes a detail in a painting, and that begins, like Auden’s poem, with a grand, declarative statement.
The Pope died almost seven days ago.
There is a line running a series
Though the line is not aligned
You can't put the series end to end
And view any kind of continuity.
Lord Jesus, help us walk in your steps
There was another Jorge once
Who was no less meditative than Newman
Once the Pope gave advice to priests
To not ask questions or pry too much
When dealing with confessing congregants
Anti-psychoanalytical
Like Deleuze and Guattari
"Sit here while I go over there and pray"
Sit before a series of squares with
lines running through them
Draw your attention to the endless, infinite
series, drawings of suffering, drawings
of the end of a series, as a series.
Toward the latter stages, it gets blacker,
"into your hands..."
There is a line running through a series
And then, colour arrived.
Orange fire, heaven, hope
