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The Conception of a God
The Annunciation with Saint Emidius
Carlo Crivelli (c. 1430–1494)
Nothing of poverty’s nothingness
Here, but something to be announced
In a sun-silvered season.
Outside of Time’s linear reign
The high-flown archangel
Touches down
In a mist of flowers,
Wings glittering,
Like snow on distant hills or castle towers.
He greets Saint Emidius
Who is burdened in beautiful brocades
Of red inclining to purple, and the
Two friends discuss ecclesiastical
Things, foreign powers or trade.
A peacock’s tail fans out and
Enunciates patterns with a wind-lifted
Crimson tapestry awry on a balustrade.
While in a glassy blaze of light,
A golden aureoled dove circles and startles
Lesser birds into confused, white flight.
The archangel enlightens the lady,
Assures her, there is nothing odd
In a virgin being
The mother of a god.
Then he and the gold-lit aureoled dove
Last seen in Ascoli Piceno
In the Marches,
Leave in a close conversation
About divine love.
The lesser doves resume their litany
Of coo-pee-coo,
While the pale lady
At the prie dieu
Quite reflective, seemingly
Absorbed in the text,
Like Crivelli is getting
Things into perspective.
U. Calderone
Rabelais (1495–1553)
A clever satirist Francois Rabelais.
It is said, that on his death bed
He remarked that the farce was over.
Some folk may agree that
Life seems far too cryptic
And meaningless to be a tragedy,
And far too bitter to be a comedy.
Maybe Rabelais demonstrated
Some class,
When he chose the word, farce.
U. Calderone
Rhyme and Reason
Thinking of purchasing a highly respected
Rhyming Dictionary,
(I realise that it won’t make up
For lack of talented creativity)
But I thought of Alexander Pope,
And re-read his
“An Epistle to Miss Blount on her
Leaving the Town after the
Coronation.”
I wondered if when
“Plagued with headaches,
Or the want of rhyme,”
Would the poet have found
A Rhyming Dictionary
Helpful in his time?
U. Calderone
Truth
(after Martial)
When authors ask me
To tell the truth about
Their writings: the short story,
That novel, the learned text,
Their attempts at poetry.
I do not shirk that measure,
But quietly declare
That Truth rarely gives pleasure.
U. Calderone
