The Muse

(An International Journal of Poetry)

ISSN 2249 –2178

Volume-3                                                      DECEMBER -2013                                           Number-2

BECOMING GALATEA

 by Jane Beal

I did not know myself. I could not feel

my pulmonary capacity, the inner workings

of my cardiovascular musculature, the intricate

connections between my veins. My blood

was marble. I had my being in white darkness.

The idea of my form began to materialize

on earth, as it is in heaven, in the dreams

of a sculptor, my sculptor, a man whose thoughts

were set in stone and whose hands knew the beauty

of my hardness: the mystery of my becoming.

Hammer. Chisel. Marble splintering, a cloud of white dust

settling on his skin. I was touching him for the first time,

the fragrance of my stonework easing into his pores,

the sounds of my slow birth entering his ears, the cool

white taste of me on his tongue: his vision emerging.

All of his senses awakened to my nature, his desire

kindled in his heart of flesh a flame of prayer

breathed out in silence,  hanging in the workshop air above

amethyst and sapphire, granite and golden flecks of mica,

and the opal necklace he clasped against my collarbone.

My soul was stirring inside of me, the eyes of my eyes

were opening, when he lay me down on the crimson coverlet

and went away for a festival day. The ears of my ears

were awakening! The tongue of my tongue tasted pure water!

When he returned to me, the light shining through the window

touched me at the same time his hands touched me.

Softness. Warmth. I could feel myself, the hardness inside

becoming flesh, my heart pumping marble that turned

to blood, my lungs filling with air, lifting my ribcage,

my breath drawing the scent of him into the innermost part of me.

With white lilies, I made a crown for my hair, all living

things became mine, as I dreamed of a form from heaven

stirring inside of me, in my hidden workshop of water and blood:

the tiny eyes and ears, nose and mouth, flesh forming

her father’s hands, her mother’s womb: Paphos, my island

girl, born out of stone and light, marble and flesh, prayer

and the power to create in open space the form of desire. 

LA GUERNICA IN COLOR

 by Jane Beal

I saw La Guernica when I was ten –

for the first time, a Pablo Picasso!

But someone had added color to it.

Bold blues, bloody reds, a brown horse’s head

severed from his twisting body beside

a woman posed like the mater dolor-

rosa, her eyes weeping off her malformed face

onto the broken body of her child

while the horse’s hooves trample a soldier

named José, who is dreaming of a bull-

fight, a red matador cape, forgetting

the blade of his sword has been broken off:

the ghosts of the dead are screaming over

him as the eye of God opens like light.

…………………..