The Yokohama Museum Poems

by Howard A. Landman

These poems were written on May 16, 1997 after seeing Picta Fragmenta, an exhibition of wall paintings from Pompei, at the Yokohama Museum of Art. Three are about items from the Pompei exhibit, the other two about items in the museum's permanent collection. All five together were written in less than an hour.

Picta Fragmenta

Psyche in volo

Arched forever over a room that no longer exists,
she seems glad to be caught in a good light.
It flatters her, and she knows you're looking.
Larger than life, her ripe breasts dangle like grapes;
but who is vintner enough to make such wine?

Vittoria

Though she has wings,
when she flies it is her womb that draws her through the air,
as if ripeness itself were buoyant. Her back
is arched from its pull.

The family: once she flew through their days
without ever reaching the end of her journey -
flatness made infinite, eternal -
then came the gas, and ash, and darkness.
Night for a millenium.

Now, we see what they saw: light filtering through
her diaphanous gown, the sky itself fluttering
with her passage. She looks relieved, triumphant,
but her womb is impatient, insistent, tugs at her
harder than ever. Perhaps
it can finally see its destination.

Menade

Watch out. Her left arm cradles bundled grain,
but she is clearly dressed to kill again.
That wild-eyed look can really turn your head
but from her other hand drips something red.

Für schlaflose Nächten (Studie)
(oil painting by Kitawaki Noboru (1901-1951), 1938)

The charcoal mist of night drifts by, but,
like steam tendrils rising from an undersea volcano,
my thoughts bubble ceaselessly upward
toward some distant glimmer.

Femme à la tête de roses
(statue by Salvador Dali, 1981)

The coral convolutions of her sorrowful brain
have grown so heavy
that her very body sags and crumples.
She tries to pose and vamp, but only a crutch of light
can keep her standing. Her own hands
tug at her arm, restrain her, but even like this,
scooped-out, crippled,
she would walk forward, if only
her feet could reach the erupting ground.

I couldn't find a picture of
the statue, but it appears to
be based on this earlier painting,
Femme à tête de roses.

Howard A. Landman / howard@polyamory.org

Created 1997 May 17
Last updated 2000 October 4