Two After Edvard Munch’s Bathing Man, by M. Benjamin Thorne

The Bathing Man, by Edvard Munch (Norway) 1918

Ekphrasis of Edvard Munch’s Bathing Man
 
As one foot presses the surface, breaks
the tension, and descends into the river,
does it stir the water, or do the waters stir him?
Resplendent in rainbow-dappled nudity
his sense of light and air and wetness
ebbs and flows with his emotions,
all of them roiling in response
to the universe of his creativity.

**

Oppenheimer Observes Edvard Munch’s Bathing Man
 
Behold the polychromatic man
astride the river, moving like a god
or fearsome titan, the colours swirl 
in response to the placement of his feat,
like neutron reactions marshalled 
in accelerators, no muzzle velocity
for the hubris of unmaking Creation. . .
 
Am I Prometheus, illuminator of Man?
No, I am become Death, destroyer of worlds
and he is not bathing but burning,
limned by radiation, gamma rays my brush,
my Bhagavad-Gita, and I am clean only
of innocence. All that is solid melts into air.

M. Benjamin Thorne

M. Benjamin Thorne is an Associate Professor of Modern European History at Wingate University. Possessed of a lifelong love for both history and poetry, he is particularly interested in exploring the synergy between the two. He has poems published in or forthcoming from Topical Poetry, The New Verse News, The Savannah Literary Journal, and The Main Street Rag.