FOUR POEMS BY D.S. MARTIN

1. Pietà

2. White Chagall

3. Memphis, 1968

4. Line & Colour

See also biographical and bibliographical information further down this page.

PIETÀ

St. Peter’s Basilica

How young she looks to have a full-grown son
draped across her knees Comprehending we pity

all her face conveys though the corpse shows
little evidence of his manner of death Every

vein bulges with life his muscles maintain their tone
so that his merely human form reflects the divine beauty

in which it was made & Michelangelo may add knowledge
to skill from all of those late nights studying anatomy

How young she looks & how large but the mountain
of cloth the genius in the fabric folds so delicately

shaped from stone holds our attention & maintains
the pyramid-like balance We sense the tragedy

of a mother losing her son & consider all that’s known
from scripture The sculptor expresses his piety

using this most-perfect piece of marble & his considerable
gift to speak of love & loss humanity & deity

How young she looks as young as the artist’s mother
would have been when she slipped into eternity

© D.S. Martin
………..from Ampersand

WHITE CHAGALL

Oil on canvas, 1938

Christ ever the suffering servant serves Chagall
in this depiction looking down from his sad height

with arms stretched like the wings of a gull
or an albatross frozen in flight

Flames rise from the synagogue & the emptied stetl
as soldiers charge to the fight

A man escapes clutching a Torah & a careful
woman holds a child in her arms tight

While echoing images of the persecuted circle
the central figure awash in heavenly light

his nakedness is wrapped in a prayer shawl
& his halo is discrete despite

the winds that blow from the scroll
toward the cross with prophetic insight

The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all
for perplexing justice will be proved right

© D.S. Martin
………..from Ampersand

MEMPHIS, 1968

I’ve been to the mountaintop & from there
I’ve scanned the distance as far from myself
as the Promised Land

I’ve been to the motel balcony over-looking
the parking lot only able to see dark skies
overhead the shadow of God’s hand

I’ve seen beyond dark smudges of newsprint
beyond bricks & bottles & broken glass beyond
mere reactions to reactions

beyond the distractions & game of turning
cameras from the faults that make you squirm
despite my own infractions

I’ve seen beyond   to the need for a name
not a man   a voice detached from the sin within
a Moses to lead you   but not enter the land

I’ve been to the mountaintop & found
that in secret I’ve smashed
the tablets to the ground

I’ve been to the motel balcony I’ve lifted my eyes
beyond the hills to the skies & seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord

LINE & COLOUR

The first map you saw   was
mere line & colour   before
you knew to multiply it out into a world
before a blue curl   could be a river
& a straight thread   your street

You gradually heard three little squares
declare themselves houses   & three little trees
go further   & suggest a whole forest
& the forest   to suggest the wild   where lines
lost & overgrown   no longer meet

where things you cannot own
never lie down    confined to a legend
& the mysteries of darkness
& light   remain unknown
where those trees   those same little trees

rise high above two-dimensional paper
to be blown   in the uncharted wind
just as we   will be shown
how the landscape   too   in all its line & colour
reveals far more than itself

ABOUT D.S. MARTIN

D.S. Martin is a Canadian poet who is Series Editor for the Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books, and is Poet-in-Residence at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario. His books of poetry include: Angelicus (2021), Ampersand (2018), Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis (2013), Poiema (2008), and the chapbook So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (2007, Rubicon Press).

So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed - Poetry by D.S. Martin

Learn more about D.S. Martin from his 2 main websites: (1) https://dsmartin.ca/ and (2) https://kingdompoets.blogspot.com/

His books are available from his publisher, Cascade Books, and from amazon.com, amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk.

Return to: OTHER POETS & POEMS OVERVIEW