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A Third Scroll of Malachite: A Painting by Joost de Jonge and Poem by Norman Dubie

Joost de Jonge and Norman Dubie

"A Third Scroll of Malachite/ inspired by Norman Dubie", 65 x 100 cm (26x40 inch), acrylics and oils on paper, 2017 (collection Piet-Jan van Rossum).
“A Third Scroll of Malachite / inspired by Norman Dubie”
65 x 100 cm (26×40 inch), acrylics and oils on paper, 2017 (collection Piet-Jan van Rossum).

A Third Scroll of Malachite

—circa 800 AD

The magus as a small boy in Egypt
in his faded linens
thought that the torchlight reflected in the harbor
was a simple exchange of sleeping gulls
over their sea of salt—     a dark disk in the sky
believed the other brother
resented the elders in the cliffs’ cavities
because their birds and scales full of dry bread
were both blackened. The serpent

offering quinces like stadia tickets to the women,
just a joke about the boats in the sky
resembling the green scudding clouds of the sea.

The winter chorus of martyred infants
sings with hesitation.
So, the cry of the gull is torchlight
climbing over the wharves at midnight. This is a slight
of mind and some hillside soliloquy saying
there will be sweet figs threaded
there where inside the seed
yet another seed is nesting like some Roman poison
in the wine of a country wedding.

Here, tacking the sincere jewels
of the pomegranate substitutes for golden
songbirds in trees. The mother dreaming
of a new Jerusalem with tilting sticks on a hill.
They purposefully wield him through the colored garden
where the sleeves collect
like cold waters in a stone fountain.

More gulls snoring up inside
the young master’s dress that is folded jade
like an ocean with buttons of bone and alabaster
alternatively…
up in the branches of olive
the wind whispers…     do not touch me
for I have not yet descended, I am
the old sun that will kiss you on both cheeks
repeatedly, with an extra scent of solemnity, the full
daymoon now dressed but shoeless…
like a kind whore
she calls us to her breasts
which are labeled opalescent rubbish. Now, please,
be well for less with more.

Artist’s note: Norman Dubie gave to me for part 3 of my Ekphrasis project “Painted Poetry & Painterly Poetics; an ekphrastic notion volume 3: Palimpsest.” www.paintedpoetry.org
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Joost de Jonge

Joost de Jonge is a widely exhibited Dutch artist with work in a wide range of international collections. He was educated at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and ’s-Hertogenbosch, and at the Universitat de Barcelona. He earned his BFA in painting with honors at the School of the Arts in Utrecht, followed by an artist residency at the Fundación Cultural Knecht-Drenth in Callosa d’en Sarrià, Spain.

In 2008 he began publishing catalogues of his work. In 2011 he initiated the Ekphrasis Project with his book The Ekphrasis Project: Oceanen van Kleur, inviting art critics, art historians, and poets to respond to his paintings with original writings. In 2014 the series became an online publication, and in 2015 he produced his first e-book with its own domain at paintedpoetry.org: Painted Poetry & Painterly Poetics—an ekphrastic notion. The collaborative project flourished with contributions from across Europe as well as from important American poets and writers.

His photos and poems have been featured in Dutch magazines, In 2014 the art critic and curator Peter Frank interviewed him for a YouTube video titled “Joost de Jonge: A Life of Art,” directed by Juri Koll and produced by the Venice Institute of Contemporary Art.

Norman Dubie

Norman Dubie’s newest collection of poems, Robert Schumann is Mad Again, will be published by Copper Canyon Press in 2019. His previous collection, The Quotations of Bone (Copper Canyon Press, 2015), won
the 2016 Griffin International Poetry Prize. His most recent book of aphorisms, Lumen de Lumine (Paper Press Books, 2017), is now available. He lives and teaches in Tempe, Arizona.

Author: Joost de Jonge and Norman Dubie Tags: art, poetry Category: Visual Art and Visual Poetry May 12, 2017

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Comments

  1. Fred LaMotte says

    May 17, 2017 at 1:19 pm

    “The winter chorus of martyred infants
    sings with hesitation.” EXQUISITE

    I am also wondering if line seven is “resented the elders in the cliffs’ cavities”
    or is it supposed to be “represented the elders.”

    Thank you for an amazing poem!

    Reply
    • Ernesto L. Abeytia says

      June 5, 2017 at 1:10 am

      Dear Fred, the line is correct as it appears. The brother resented the elders.

      Reply

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Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

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