The Seductive Loveliness of Perspective, by Peter Frankis

Saint Jerome in his Study, by Antonello da Messina (Italy) c. 1475

The Seductive Loveliness of Perspective 
 
On any screen my attention drifts 
whether it's girls online or the official denials 
a reporter hunched in a bunker or 
reading the accounts—I'm looking 

elsewhere: stars and flags draped down empty skies 
the blasted building windowed embers
the 8x10s of Sardinia, how book spines make haiku 
"the drowned cities embrace fierce December". 

Here’s his desert cave, now a sandstone proscenium 
he’s upright in that bent-backed chair and bleak 
as a Hopper shopgirl, recalling the years of exile, 
the poverty and ruin of the world.

And all this bricolage: a teeny stair, a wall unit, 
the inlaid floor, vaultage and colonnades 
everywhere ellipse and line. Even the crucifix up there 
Christ’s arm pulled back 'til the sockets crack. 

Now she shifts her shirt, says I’m here now 
same table lamp, same decor, a glimpse of rushing leaves. 
Beyond an olive grove where two highways meet--
one to the desert, one to the coast 

and at the crossroads a boy singing his new-bought voice
the birds circling round, charmed right out of the sky.
 
Peter Frankis

Peter Frankis is an Australian writer, living in the industrial town of Port Kembla south of Sydney. Recent poems have appeared Wild (Ginninderra Press) Geelong Writers Centre Anthology 2020 (forthcoming) and online in Plumwood Mountain Journal, Vox Poetica and Vita Brevis.