1.

Ugh, analysis.
Trick of the drawing room:
Her eyes hook
As they pretend to look
Into you.
Search her gaze.
Most modest of that thug's madonnas—-
Wearing Europe's face,
A jeune fille, really—-
She's nude for you,
Selling everything,
It's delicious—-
Breasts, love,
Mangos,
Grace...
Glancing at something, Something,
Aside.
Not you.
"I can't conceal"
She whispered in my dream,
"What a fine, nasty
Animal
I am."
Varnish can.

2.

Gauguin to Willumsen:
"I have decided to travel soon to Tahiti....
A terrible epoch is coming for future generations
in Europe, the tyranny of gold. Everything is
rotten...."

I'll admit
You were right
About the gold.
Apples, francs,
The luster of her bosoms...
All tyranny.
So?
You were wild for it,

The letch frothed—-
Creamier on your
Mediterranean lips
Than any throat
You ever painted.
You should have been my star, Gauguin.
Oriental. Blue and cool
And always rising.
I crave all you had,
All you were.
Not dreams.
I try to wake.
Yes.
My green soul screams
Red dogs,
Banana skies.

3.

Your eyes do it.
They make those mangos ironic.
It's always like that,
On paper, canvas,
On vases in museums of glory,
In the minds of all the fantasists tortured
With what never was or will be
Possible.
Your anima,
Paralyzed in oil,
Burns always,
Always, for the fruit,
While you ignore
Or miss
Or mock
The blossoms.
Petals that never shall
Rain impassioned
To your hair.
You and your kind,
Lady,
Tantalize the living
And the dead.
It looks so simple.

4.

What, no legs?
That monomaniac left you nothing
To stand on.
He said:
Swim into my world,
Little faith-deluded sparkles.
Here,
Fovea's hotspot,
Is what is real,
Marvel.
Blind am I,
He chanted,
To all but love—-
So spread
Your seaborne, seabreathing
Waterwings,
My dear,
Precious,
Onlyest,
Most savage throb,
Come here.
These lights are legend—-
They cripple
What they cannot see.