[Poem] Ekphraistic Poem

Day 6

An Ekphrastic Poem based on Jheronimus Bosch’s Painting The Garden of Earthly Delights

 

I am a child clement

I have no need for raiment

I am the child of god, the father of man

Before Noah’s arc

Before the flood

And the fear it instilled

Before Satan talked or walked

Before Eve’s flagrancy

Before One became Three?

Heaven, Earth, Hell

After the first man fell.

If it were a fall why then a ball?

Why the wild party, the orgy?

Why the vagrant Profligacy?

Every man, animal, being

Indulging in amorous coupling?

What if I drew a wrong analogy?

A gross misreading of a great allegory?

Perhaps the painting is from right to left?

What if I am the consciousness that sleeps as you dream up galaxies?

Or what if I am extra-terrestrial

Armed with machines industrial

In a world where men and women are equal

I gave light, music, I built transport buildings, museums.

But perhaps man fell 

As he is wont to fall

Every mortal greed stems from the flesh

The centre couldn’t hold?

In a blood thirsty virus’ strangle hold

The World burned whole

                   And

Manu or Noah was United

With the Pluralistic One?