Simon Brittan-Ortiz — Four Poems

Ars Longa

When the simultaneous unfolding

Of four thousand and forty-seven pairs

Of wings along the sandstone cliffs at Dawlish

In a freak year for butterflies

Coincides with simultaneous warnings

Of sunami off Hokkaido and Kyoto

Our instruments are very pleased

And terrifying armies of appeased

Statisticians gather for the photo-

Shoot; somewhere else a schoolboy yawning

Seals the fate of science, and ties

God's shoestrings together, though the smallish Angels still observe us with frank stares

From rococo or baroque mouldings.

Hieronymus Bosch's first Therapy Session

(For Rolf Tschannen)

Perhaps something did happen, some cascaded violence Or bright migraine of sex; perhaps even a vision:

I can imagine but not remember a beckoning Christ or Virgin Just as I can imagine but not really remember

A childhood spent playing with clever symmetrical toys, Or watching insects mate, or trips to the capital.

I like the idea of Michael saying "Borrow my sword

For a week" but no, I'm not obsessed with Apocalypse.

Besides, the past is always a country whose colours remain Unmixed till the present decides it's time for another go.

Jokes and God's bestiaries leap down from the margins

Of beautiful books: when they laugh paint comes out of their mouths.

The Various Edens

In the just cities of the mind Thug Achilles sulks the war away

And nobody reads poetry. (Think how boring it would be, Like Mozart's sister's diary:

Walked again today. It didn't rain.)

Elsewhere the tragic deaths occur,

i.e. your deaths: sex too shall be unkind

To keep not metaphysics but Our verses warm. On Black Sea cliffs Exiled Ovid reads the waves:

Greatly instructed I shall hence depart.

St Vincent's Right Arm:

Possibilties of my First Relic

A dying master-stonemason embarrassed by his role in an unimpressive cathedral exhorts his family to bury him in his jewels.

Claw your way back through martyrdom from something called history to something called credulity. Be a Havishamesque fragment. Always overdress.

I suppose I fulfil a social function, psychologists have interesting names for me. I do know I haven't seen hand cream in centuries.

Some people love illuminated books, some place rings on severed fingers - both interesting comments on the relation between form and content.

Dr Dulcamara has it on the best authority that the young virgin's last words gave the precise location of the dismembered martyr.

Regular congregation up twelve percent.

Plus pilgrims. Then the tourists. I'll do an appeal for the roof and get those nice Italian bath taps.