Dutch Masters
An age away, the scented evergreens
are still, a lucent wave commits
to hush, the sun emits a breath,
as the noon-deep
labourings commence:
the slender, severed necks
are tossed, the throttled mouths
are mounted in the heat,
and inch by inch
the fragrant earth is stripped
of human foliage, an
evacuated island
glinting in the sun,
whose high, in-
sinuating witness, too,
is whittled down
by windy-deep sea-distances
traversed by golden ships,
the agony
drowned out,
the heady deaths annulled –
a complicated commerce
that finds its second lustre here,
in the satin cheeks
and quiffed moustache
of the Laughing Cavalier,
the fluorescent cuffs
and florid sash
a single flow and glimmering,
his canny, quiet eyes
a-gleam, two tiny pools
of blue and black,
pricked
by the light of the world.
An age away, the scented evergreens
are still, a lucent wave commits
to hush, the sun emits a breath,
as the noon-deep
labourings commence:
the slender, severed necks
are tossed, the throttled mouths
are mounted in the heat,
and inch by inch
the fragrant earth is stripped
of human foliage, an
evacuated island
glinting in the sun,
whose high, in-
sinuating witness, too,
is whittled down
by windy-deep sea-distances
traversed by golden ships,
the agony
drowned out,
the heady deaths annulled –
a complicated commerce
that finds its second lustre here,
in the satin cheeks
and quiffed moustache
of the Laughing Cavalier,
the fluorescent cuffs
and florid sash
a single flow and glimmering,
his canny, quiet eyes
a-gleam, two tiny pools
of blue and black,
pricked
by the light of the world.
Featured Image: The Laughing Cavalier (1624) by Frans Hals