Piers (In Silver Gelatin), by Bruce Whitacre

Piers (In Silver Gelatin)
 
with glosa from “Losing Form in Darkness” by David Wojnarowicz
10.16.23, 10.17.23, 10.23.23

after Mural at Canal Street Piers, by Peter Hujar (United States) 1983. Click here to view:
​artblart.com/2017/04/25/exhibition-peter-hujar-speed-of-life-at-fundacion-mapfre-barcelona/19-web-4/

1.
Seeing the pale flesh of frescoes come to life
Faces Byzantine and Cycladic gaze from shadows
Onto all that remains: chamber of wreck and wet boxes
Washed downriver with the spilled champagne of last farewells,
Memories of horn-blasted honeymoons at the lost casinos of Cuba,
Einstein’s refuge, the rescue of drenched survivors, bananas.
the smooth turn of hands over bodies
the taut lines of limbs and mouths, the intensity of energy
Bended knees and thrusting hips recite
Sacraments of new religion and ancient ecstasies
While witnesses deep in shadow whisper prophecies
Divined from broken windows and paid-up tariffs,
Foreshadowing the doom of decades to come.
brings others down the halls where guided by little sounds or no sounds
Dark shapes recall the last Christian priest of New Rome
Who rather than perish to Ottoman swords
Vanished into the walls of Hagia Sophia,
And returns now to bless the celebrants as
they pass silently over the charred floors.
 
2.
Enough with the metaphors. Here it is.
The acrid rot and mildew scald my nostrils--
Fetid Hudson River summer.
I left the shop late to put on filthy jeans, T-shirt
Strategically torn to bare nipple and navel.
Nails and spikes menace my shoddy Keds.
White faces loom from cracked walls
Scanned by clandestine flashlight, passing beams
of a tug and a smoky moon, all background
to the hunt, the stand and stare.
We see nothing but ourselves, blind to holes that drop
To oily water, to tread-less stairs, to missing walls.
By day, I am pissed we’re left to forage like rats on a wharf.
By night we are the slime of the Underworld
Feeding on the living corpses we crave.
We’re just horny guys, free at last
To play the games we missed as kids,
or loved too much even then.
They can paint all they want--
Sure. Wait, let me pose for you--
But the pictures are not the point,
Even if they’re all that will be left of us.
                    
Bruce Whitacre

Good Housekeeping (Poets Wear Prada) is a BookLife Reviews Editors Pick. The Elk in the Glade: The World of Pioneer and Painter Jennie Hicks, placed 2nd in Contemporary Poetry at The BookFest Spring 2023. Bruce Whitaker’s crown sonnet about the culture of violence won the Nebraska Poetry Society’s 2023 Open Poetry Contest. He has been published in Queensbound and many anthologies and journals. “Leave Meeting” is included in Diane Lockward’s craft book, The Strategic Poet, Terrapin Books, 2021. Nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net. He lives with his husband in Forest Hills, NY. www.brucewhitacre.com