Two After Salvador Dali, by Barbara Krasner

The Persistence of Memory, by Salvador Dali (Spain) 1931

​The Persistence of Memory
 
Time slides through the slats
of barracks, melts in my hand
in frigid air. I want to slurp it up
in my bowl, but the carcasses 
around me demand its syrup first. It
cannot revive them. Clock
after clock, roll call after
roll call, nothing changes. Day
is night. Night is day. One day
melts to a week, a month,
a year. I think. I don’t know
how long I’ve been here.
I can’t remember a time when
I wasn’t. If I’m not careful,
a dead body will cover me whole,
and then no one will capture
melting minutes. The bare branches
reach out for me, waiting
for my embrace.

The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, by Salvador Dali (Spain) 1953-1954

The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory

The war is over, nobody cares what you went through
The blocks of brick barracks in neat Teutonic rows
Minutes, hours, days, years melted in gutted fish
Bullets
Bullets
Bullets
Memory breaks down into pellets
The mortar only grains of sand
Does anyone remember the slaves who built the pyramids?
The slaves who crafted the bullets?
The slaves impaled on electric fences?
A great hammock lies across the Atlantic,
Lean and taut, no room for explanation or questions.

Barbara Krasner

Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has been featured previously in The Ekphrastic Review, Here, Caesura, Nimrod, and elsewhere. She lives and teaches in New Jersey and can be found at www.barbarakrasner.com.