Felipe II offers Prince Fernando to Victory by Titian, c. 1572–1575
ontological paradoxes inscribe visions
Twombly’s cryptographic calligraphy
evoking mythic themes accentuated
by lyric eruptions of color
poetic inquiries that do
not bend to the mind’s
demands for conceptual clarity
anathema to academic dissection
Lepanto battle of induction
and deduction amidst a
conceptual sea of symbols
royal, military, and holy powers
flotsam and jetsam
fragile lives of men
afloat in moral ambiguity
Titian’s angel of victory
a melting wax figure
engulfed in a watery grave
Chromapoetica 
Oh Anna. Just saw your tweet. Love this. You write protest poetry so eloquently. I’m not writing. I hope to find the muse soon. I’ve been playing the piano and trying to figure out what to be when I grow up. I miss reading your work and talking to you. Hope everything is ok for you and yours in this crazy world we’re living in!
Dear lovely and talented, Gay! I miss you, too and hope all is well with you. I’m excited to hear about your piano playing, any favorite pieces? My doctoral program leaves little time for poetry writing and reading but sometimes the muse will not behave.
Working on two Mozart Sonatas particularly the K.570. I have it almost at performance level.
Also the No.12 in C which is trickier with all the sudden dynamic changes. Getting old. Fingers don’t always do what I tell them to and when. I always had accuracy and ease of sight reading. Still can read easily but transmitting to music, a bit more difficult. Still I trod along. Working on some Bach, and Piazzola tangos which are delicious, as well.
The “moral ambiguity” means we need to make choices. The “ontological paradoxes” should keep things interesting indefinitely. Thanks for linking to dVerse, Anna.
Yes, thank you again and for the prompt!
kaykuala
a melting wax figure
engulfed in a watery grave
What a way to end! Great word-craft Anna!
Hank
Thank you, Hank!
Hello Anna, I’m literally blown away here. First, I got a dictionary- so now I know what some words mean. Then I realised you must referring to something in history I know nothing about. And then I noted several metaphors….. so here I am, lost at sea.
Would you be so kind as to translate this piece? 🙂
Hi Vivian, lovely to meet you. The Lepanto battle was fought in the late 1500s and has been represented by artists from Titian to Cy Twombly. The Titian painting displayed shows the monarch lifting his infant son to the angel, demonstrating divine favor in victory and the hope that the glory will continue. Prince Fernando died a few years later in childhood. Allusions to Twombly’s painting include the title (a scribble on one of his paintings), cryptographic calligraphy (part of his style and military service), wax (a frequent material) and his use of mythic themes. However, I don’t use allusions unless they can serve double or more meanings. The poem can be seen as a metaphor for our current political climate, a warning against believing in divine favor against enemies, a cryptographic puzzle about the complex intertwining of power and war, a commentary on the role of art and who it serves (or doesn’t) even in our contemporary world, an elegy to the lost soldiers (then and now), or a host of other things the reader brings to it because in the end poetry meaning is determined by the reader not only the writer. All that said the poem asserts that poetic inquiry defies conceptual clarity and the mind’s need to dissect, infer, and deduce in the second and third verses :). My mind’s always trying to dissect poetry while my heart recognizes it as a gestalt, pieced together by aesthetic sensibilities, lyric diction, and dialogue with what came before, so it was my note to self like Twombly’s in his painting. I didn’t know anything about the battle of Lepanto until I decided to write this poem based on the Twombly painting.
Thanks Anna😊. I’ve learnt something new!
So happy to see a new poem!
Thank you, beautiful!
SO glad to see you writing again Anna… and hope you will come back many times. I love your use of words and sometimes wish I had your vocabulary…. but still you get the point through (just had to google a few of the words)
Thank you, Björn, for always making me feel welcome even when it’s been more than a year!
Whew, I could not believe it was you linking up, smiles ~ The ending of that grave speaks to me as it is our Remembrance Day in Canada ~ As it was then and now, these lines are beautiful:
fragile lives of men
afloat in moral ambiguity
Have a good weekend ~