Michelangelo

on marble.

Come on, Michelangelo!

The marble is flawed, an ugly crack splits
open wide blue veins against gentle flesh.  
Work your magic, but what they don’t know is
There isn’t any magic.

There is only your fingers rubbed red raw
on unhearing stone and unseeing stares.
Bloom crimson and white against the chisel,
Violet blushing blue where your muse kissed you. 

Get up, Michelangelo! 

Settle the blindfold snug around your ears,
press trembling lips and hands to sun-warmed stone. 
You are not the master, you are the work. 
You are not the maker, you are the made. 

Listen close to the trickle of the creek.
It flows in the darkest places of your heart,
where the air is cool with mist and your breath 
fogs out pale silver clouds in the dim light. 

Your hammer rings out, tolling clear as glass.
Let life flow under your hands and blossom.
Imperfection is only a sign of growth. 
As tears begin to flow from marble eyes, 

you thumb them away. 

---

Again, best viewed on desktop! This one’s about making art. Maybe fittingly, it absolutely refused to fit neatly into meter. (…is it hypercatalexis if it’s more than half the lines…)

Reading published poetry has given me a new appreciation for the craft and the absolute economy of words some poets use. You can really feel the intentionality behind each line, and it makes me reflect on how much of my own writing is that intentional and how much is just padded out to make it sound nice (which isn’t a crime either, I guess).

Anyways, this substack isn’t meant to be all poetry so I’m hoping to post more prose (once I write it…hm).