Hecatoncheires

For all my life
I’ve obeyed the rules
– their rules

Never following my heart
nor my abdomen
neither believing what my gut told me
nor my own thoughts

I obeyed every commandment
each edict
the letters and spirits of law
and any code of conduct

Yet here I am

The devil’s instruments
leading me on
to bare my soul
unveil my deepest desires
and tremble
naked
with delight

If, like me, you didn’t know what hecatocheires were, you can look it up here.

Napowrimo.net provided us with a lovely challenge for day 6 of #NaPoWriMo: “Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem from the point of view of one person/animal/thing from Hieronymous Bosch’s famous (and famously bizarre) triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights.”

According to a book in my house, the father of Hieronymous Bosch was a painter. He didn’t want to take on his son as an apprentice. Alledgedly he thought this son had too much fantasy to become a painter….

Wounded angel

The angel was blindfolded, but she knew her fate

“Why do we bury her alive?”
the boy asked
“What did she do?”

The angel was grateful to be carried

“Why us?”
the boy moped
“I wanted Beelzebub,
not a stupid girl.”

“She wounded him pretty badly”
his companion said
“I lost money on that bet!”

I know I wanted to write a poem when I saw this painting. What I don’t know is how I came across the painting. Was it a prompt somewhere? Was it on the app on my phone called Daily art (highly recommend if you’re into art, they come up with both well knows and unknown masterpieces)?

There’s more I don’t know. Did I read A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven (called A Time for Everything in the US) by the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgård before I wrote this? That book is so strange that you can’t look at an angel the same way after reading it.

The painting holds a sense of mystery, so I guess it fits that my memory is blurred. I’m posting this poem for #NaPoWriMo say 28 in the hope that as many people as possible get to see the beautiful painting by Hugo Simberg: The wounded angel (1903)

There’s no art in that

I guess it’s too late to be a farmer
now that my hands are tied
to the hind legs
of a raging bull

He’s constrained now
but he won’t be
in a minute
when the gates open
after they’ve prodded his balls
with a pitchfork
to

Well, do I need to explain that?

The peasants did not take my art too well
They mind pictures of naked women raping bulls
in their butt hole
more than they mind real life violence

Ultraviolence?
There’s no art in that

I guess it’s too late to be a farmer

On day 12 I wrote a palinode for this poem:  a poem in which the poet retracts a statement made in an earlier poem. It’s called There’s art in that.

More images on this subject can be found on http://www.fscclub.com/muse/sculpture-rape-europa-e.shtml