Dated 1432

Dated 1432
and here I am
looking...
                       If the artist
                       could only look back
                       too,
me admiring...
Transfixed.
And amongst
a lavish soiree
a veritas bouquet
                       death and life
displayed        and splayed
out-
                       hung crucified-
                       elaborated suffering, of the antiquity.

The lives
in the stills.
The (pro)posed lives
in the pastorals.
The captured chrysalis,
by stroke.
                        In wealthy company of all this
excessive impression
is-tic motif-
                        the money felt misplaced,
so it said subjectively.

And those people holding place
in the Portraiture room
                        -No Photographs-
needed.
                        the encounter is etched,
                        with abrasive stares-
over time.

On the walls
                        the writing of fates
                        in gilt frames
                        of a frozen time
                        of a minds eye
that was never there
but now,
                       while I am looking back
and there.





Image of painting by Cornelis Bisschop  (not the one referenced in this poem) Allegory on the Raid at Chatham dated 1667 [Public domain, Public domain or CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.