In The Garden of Earthly Delight, by Mary C McCarthy

The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Hieronymous Bosch (Netherlands). 1490-1510.

 In The Garden of Earthly Delight                
 
Despite the title
no one looks delighted.
The lovers float, impassive,
in their glass alembic.
Others reach toward
unwieldy fruit
they never seem to taste.
Legs and bodies
dangle or dance
heads and torsos swallowed
by huge berries
or the hollow bodies
of dead fish.
Women stand in a still pool
circled by a strange parade
of horned and antlered animals
ridden by pale homunculi.
 
There are so many blades and edges
to threaten naked flesh
horns and spikes and skewers
needles and knife points
everywhere
the borders lined with rows
of sharp beaked birds
large enough to pluck up
these mannikins like worms
 
who were so foolish to forget
this garden’s just one fold away
from hell.
  
Mary C McCarthy
 
Mary C McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. She has had work included in many on line and print journals, including Gnarled Oak, Third Wednesday, The Evening Street Review, Expound, and Earth’s Daughters. She spends her time on writing and drawing, and has high hopes for a better world, despite the daily news, filled with reports of war and other calamities.