2 poems
No Man’s Land
Others smear war paint
across his face, my
hands made for deeper
pleasures—hidden pistons
driving the body back
& forth across borders
that blur—no walls
keeping us from places
no one else has reached.
A Pilgrimage
No one knows when
Jeroen van Aken
was born. None
of his signed works
are dated although
there’s proof he died
in 's-Hertogenbosch
in 1516 where he
seems to have spent
most of his life as
Hieronymus Bosch
and this is all
I have to go on
as I take my stroll
across Central Park
on a Sunday afternoon
in 2018 all the way
to Gallery 641
at the Met Museum
in order to adore his
Adoration of the Magi—
perhaps the only
real Bosch to be
spotted in this city—
angels with gold leaf
on their wings holding
up a green curtain
on a scene that looks
entirely staged—
Joseph hunched over,
barely able to
prop himself up
on a crutch, Mary
sleepy-eyed, no one
in the frame
(not even the Ox)
looking at the naked
flesh of an infant
standing straight up
in his mother’s lap
with outspread arms
about to take flight
if god were a bird
building a nest
in the tower’s exposed
crags rather than being
bound by gravity
like everyone else—
a tiny couple dancing
in the background
where rolling pastoral hills
are dotted with sheep
reminding us all
that we are nothing
more than a wayward
flock in search
of someone to gather us
in—the posed
tranquility of this scene
quite a disappointment
compared to what
Bosch is best
known for—angst-ridden
tableaus of the flesh
scorched and flayed
in the next gallery over
where a crowd
has gather around a sign
mounted to the wall—
Christ’s Descent
into Hell attributed
to a mere “follower
of Bosch” who for some
is as good as all
get out for unlike
Moses or Abraham,
at least we know
Bosch and his followers
lived!—that across
the Great Lawn
I can behold an actual
copy, and when security
happens to be turned
the other way, even touch
the two oak planks
grained horizontally,
held in place
with three dowels
near the center
of a panel exposed
in an X-radiograph—
an earliest possible creation
date of 1491
indicated by
dendrochronological
analysis—its long lost
twin sequestered
in a private collection
in Milan—smoky flames
rising up
from the lower right
corner suggesting a fire
originally present
in the slightly less squarer
New York version
has been cropped
out—none of this visible
to the untrained eyes
of pilgrims for centuries
who happened by
this apparent fake
not to mention
how many times
it was packed up
and shipped off
to many distant cities
(Dallas, Iowa City,
Bloomington, Houston)
willing to pass it off
for the real thing
before I was born,
insensitive past
cleanings abrading
the delicate skin
of the uppermost
layers that render
this particular hell
more translucent
in the sky above
the ship’s riggings
and that gaping mouth
impossible to ignore
as I behold
a group of teenagers
holding up their cellphones
to take selfies
of their pilgrimage
posted instantly
for the rest of the world
to like or comment
on—hardly matters
who or when
this thing was painted—
only that we’re here.
Timothy Liu’s latest book is Luminous Debris: New & Selected Legerdemain (1992-2017). A reader of occult esoterica, he lives in Manhattan and Woodstock, NY. www.timothyliu.net