Still life by Jan Jansz. van de Velde III
In the year of my marriage, Galileo died.
No man is a solar system.
My days turn full round women averagely called Margaret.
I long to be isolate.
They screw pearls into casements; launder clavichords in pails.
I’m naught, a nutshell castaway.
There are sailing men who’ve swilled and shot alongside she-pirates.
My father’s hands show blue its green.
He harbours precision like a siege device.
No sun in my canvas.
No skull competitively spitting orangepeel.
No silence-broken cittern schooled to lose its strings.
Just night.
This night, which is to me like a cheeseshop to a mouse.
It fills a corner.
After a game with rough fellows,
a single glass.
This glass,
oh it is the measure of my universe.
Till now I had not known
the meaning of adoration.
I drink like an astronomer
at a table of my own.
read at the museum February 16th 2013
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