Hommage à Marcel Duchamp (Joseph Cornell, construction)

by Neil Ellman

Gone now

there is only the nil and void

of an empty shadow box

once filled with objects

manufactured, re-invented

in his mind

he as ready-made as them

larger than their art

than any box can hold

steel- and porcelain-words

with no meaning

other than themselves

no reason

other than the tangible

nor of himself

Art, then, is himself

re-invented in his mind

a shadow in a box.

Moon Rose (after the lithograph in Robert Rauschenberg's “Stoned Moon” series)

by Neil Ellman

Moon rose
the sun eclipsed
blood moon bleeding  
in the fall
the end of days
a blood-stained flower          
far past its bloom
full moon fading
in the west
too soon to die
a copper leaving
in the sky.

Compostition X(after the painting by Wassily Kandinsky)

by Neil Ellman

Disorder sows disorder.
Entropy fouls the gears
like barnacles.
Disaster looms
just beyond creation’s reach.
Disinterested, unperturbed
the universe pretends to care,
to know, to be
as if tomorrow
is just another day.

Nocturnal Encounter with a Lunatic (after the etching from The War by Otto Dix)

by Neil Ellman

Like a flowering hand
reaching from the ground
to seize the last light of the day
this encounter
somewhere between
the earth and sky
between a lunatic and me
in a place with a name
I can’t pronounce
seems perfectly natural
not at all at odds
with the commonplace of war.

“I am Napoleon.” he says,
“I rule this battlefield, this world
all of you at my command
will bend to my magnificence.”

Bowing at the waist
I do as I was taught to do
with emperors and lunatics
I arch my back, I bend
I pay tribute
with my dignity.

He the lunatic
or I gone mad as well
he who lost his mind
and I who lost my soul
old friends
meeting on a common field
just past hell.

Landscape with Miracles (after the painting by Andre Masson)

by Neil Ellman

Miracles take root in virgin soil
forest the land, make mountains
out of want
the mind creates its own
a landscape of birth, rebirth
from visions of an after-life
as if the stars and planets died
and were reborn again
as green light upon a hill
and blue upon a lake—
here poplars, there the sun
here rivers and rocky shores
the frozen wastes of ice and time
here the wish, the will, the wait
and then the miracle of mind
that makes them real.

The Great Mutation (after the drawing-collage by Yves Tanguy)

by Neil Ellman

I am the something-or-other
born of this and that
neither one nor the other
fish nor fowl, evolving nor evolved,
an original what
without a Latinate name
apart from the others
who were my other halves
I seek another to replicate
whatever I am
to speak the language
only I can understand
in an alphabet of letters
without any form
myself, too, without a face
to call my own
I am alone
a stranger even to myself
an anomaly of time
and circumstance
the great mutation
one of a kind.

Fire Dancers (after the painting by Mark Tobey)

by Neil Ellman

Black fire, gray smoke
black auroras dance
on blistering stones

black tongues lick
the empty sky
abandoned by the stars

black the night, black
the flames
that hypnotize the eyes.

black divinity, how black
the prayers
leaping from the pyres

Black ash and flares
how dark the music
that makes them dance.

Analysis of Diverse Perversities

(after the painting by Paul Klee)
by Neil Ellman

They are perverse, not us,
we the straight and narrow
in the marrow of our bones
they corrupted mulish miscreants
contrary to the body politic
they play at politics and war
feign ecstasy and empathy
and ride on irregular tracks
they the heretical renegades
we the righteous
and the pure.

Untitled (Blooming, A Scattering of Blossoms& Other Things)

(after the painting by Cy Twombly)
by Neil Ellman

Plum blossoms
explode in pink exuberance.

It is spring
and the rose-like scent of peonies
fill the air.

It is the dawn of creation
the beginnings of life
scattered sky, a garden,
a pond where lilies float
on silent rafts

wind sows life and death
then life again.
it is spring, coming and going
then coming again
on flowering wings.

Work No. 227, The LightsGo On and Off(after the light installation by MartinCreed with a frequency of five secondsoff and five seconds on)

by Neil Ellman

Lights on
lights off
lights on
lights off
so many days
so many nights
so many
empty rooms
so full of light
then dark
so full of dark
then light
no others
in the light
so many others
in the dark
lights on
lights off
alone
in dark
I pray
for light.

Melting Men(after Nele Azavedo’s ice sculptures ofseated figures, with a nod to T.S. Eliot)

by Neil Ellman
       
I

We are the men of ice.
Our heads are stuffed with permafrost
We have neither eyes to see
nor mouths to speak
Our souls are carved
from glacial floes
Like the angel of death      
we have no clothes, alas!
       
II

Remember us, remember us
not as a puddle full of rime
but as we were
and could have stayed
but for our moment in the sun
                 
III

Between our solid state
and liquid form
Between our frigid toes
and feverish dreams
falls the cold reality
of time—
August is the cruelest month!
             
IV

This is the way we melt away
This is the way we melt away
This is the way we melt away
not as a drip but a splatter

Vacuum Room(after the Installation of video inarchitectural galleries byArnout Mik)

by  Neil Ellman

Where we live
in an empty room
of lights and shapes
projected on a screen

where we
can barely breathe
the images
of light
hold our arms
our eyes
in pixel space

where we span
continents
time
another’s life
perhaps our own
in a vacuum room
where nothing
else is real.

Dancing on a Pin

by Neil Ellman

So many angels can spin
on the head of a pin
a
thin
pin
swirling their petticoats
round and round
the eye of a pin
in dizzying circles
never falling off
or losing feathers
as they spin
their curvish dervish dance
skin to skin
sans
skin
sans
sin
spinning on the head
of a pin
can’t stop
not knowing
where they’ve been
or why they dance
on the head of pin.

L’année (after Roberto Matta Echaurren, oil on canvas, 1944)

by Neil Ellman

Shapes turn into clouds
Then decompose
To shapeless ironies.

Breadthless lines appear
Then disappear
At countless, sudden points.

Something inevitable
Inexplicably occurs
Before it shifts to red.

*

He said he knew the source
Where squares are born
Where circles spread
And multiply as if
A stone were dropped
Into a lake of stars
Where life is formed
From dying flames.

*



The wind becomes a face
With ancient eyes
That cannot see the light.

Metaphors dissolve
Becoming stone
Before they turn to dust.

Nothing is what it seems
And every thought
Is just a guess.

*

He said he knew
How everything would end—
And then it did.