Radcliffe Killam II
Female in a Fading Mural

Soft moonlight cuts
Giving shape and shadow
Her form rests still

The pristine night masks the knotty roots.
The pulsing loam sculpture lies immobile on leafy tendrils
As if rock and dirt eroded not by the sensual elements
Rather seven, infinite brush strokes.

Dew collects on her nape
The sky becomes iridescent.

Brandy colored wings,
A monarch butterfly.

A star in the sky intensifies
Look up!

The suns strikes, enhancing this vision.
A spectacle - vase, water, un ave de paradiso.
All elements flourish:
Death and dance.
Socratic embers
Bird of (inward) paradise

Her body, her restless being awakens
To a blanket of velvet petals
Wrapped around her like flesh,
As the mirages dance -
Glaring light and carnal mud

Yet, she lies still, as if idle, to eye
A literate crowd, the passerby.

Uncommon Rite

A brick transforms into a tower of blood,
As the miniature coffins stack up.
The Devil's Wall separates seas of people.

Each barrier exists. Incognito.
White picket fence. White skin.

Purple lips kiss. Broken noses of two boxers bleed, as they dance.
Clenched, swollen fists lay upon a broken ring. A lovers' spat.

"Oh, say can you see" sung in Chinese.
Butterflies, multi-hued and varying,
Relinquish their past masks of McCarthy.

Fifty flag-less stars search for a land and indemnity.
Cinematic-scape commanded, a revolution from above.
Celluloid canvas produces an instant…

Materialized: At the Breakfast Table, Elin Danielson-Gambogi.
Little mountains of ash protest-poseur. Muffin crumbs prostrate.
Stained wedding dresses.

<< Back to Issue 3, 2000