Word and Thought
And can you say exactly what’s a word?
(Seems easy, but it isn’t!) It’s a thought
that takes on form: once wraith, it now is wrought,
much in the way that milk morphs into curd
(no Middle East ethnicity inferred).
A word’s a winged idea that’s been caught,
a spirit turning physical. In short,
an abstract concept which can now be heard.
Was Pinturicchio a peerless master?
Which of us plies his trade, nor meets complaint?
And what made Caterina such a saint?
Might Joan of Arc, for instance, not outlast her?
Crusades and poetry ain’t for the faint
of heart. That tart, Art, truckles with disaster.
Categories:
enea,
Form: Sonnet
Paint and Plaster
So what, in essence, is this thing called paint?
A coloured liquid which, applied to plaster,
will fuse and forge a thing securer, faster,
and far more comely than before. How quaint!
Attaching thought to walls is not restraint,
not loss. It dries, and then the thought feels vaster!
And plaster’s porous, not like alabaster,
and so it’s fixed. The link twixt tint and taint!
It’s nice to think that Piccolomini fought
back tears of pride, the frescoes having stirred
sublime emotions: positively purred
to see his forebear honoured in this sort.
Alas, too soon he was, himself, interred.
And thus our high ambitions come to nought.
Categories:
enea,
Form: Sonnet