Volume II Archive

Jay Thompson

Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque

after W.B. Yeats

Men with bird bodies, crackle wet of grass
Under the chimera’s foot, took lacquer
Of tar-black thunder last, flattened
On a stone tucked under the forked toes.
Most lost, thus one must stun lines.
Mice find holes in stones.

*

The one who speaks of sunrise tells a lie:
The earth is that which turns. The human heart
Can seat no feeling, merely several chambers.
We ferret out untruths. There is a God,
And all his works are measured on a chain.
The Pantheon is beautiful at dawn.
360 is the perfect number.
St. Peter waits in Heaven for the Pope.

*

The Lord is in the numbers, friend—
The mustard seeds are wise.
Pluck a string: the circle’s chord
Will set the six to ring.
I’ll twist you till you break and then
I’ll teach you how to feel.
I believe that statues bleed,
That lines mark off the time
Till the body’s curves are stretched
To fit my spiral dome.