The Deposizione

Rosso Fiorentino ("Firenze Red"), Deposizione

(ca. 1521). Pinacoteca Comunale, Volterra, Italy

“If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. . . .What is now proved was once, only imagin’d.”

—William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"

Unpinning from the Cross was hard,

with even Seraphs at a loss!

yet human creatures braved the task.

After we'd bribed the Roman dogs

(easy—they were Krauts or wogs)

making mercy's scaffolding obligatory

took ages, till in Nicaea's fair and pleasant city

Great Kostas* forged officious pity.

Persisting in their folly, bishops contrived

monstrosities once only found in thought.

Long they've thrived, long the faithful bought.

Now in this annus horribilis, 2025,

it is uncertain what these days gives.

But—Oh, say it ain't so!—Kostakis lives.

*The Roman emperor Constantine I, called Constantine the Great (r. 306–37 CE), who founded Constantinople as his capital and in 325 imposed the straitjacket of the Nicene Creed on his newly Christianized empire.

Tuesday, December 16. 2025

À propos de Nice

Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse, Thaïs (1890). Alexander the Great's lover Thaïs leads the burning of Persepolis

On reading The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

“To be on a daïs with Thaïs, how naïs.”—attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald

Reading Henry James, I fancy be-

ing owner of a palazzo in Florence

and wintering there, by way of Paris,

Nice, and the Promenade des Anglais,

after a dip in the Baie des Anges,

—an Anglo-American swell in late

Victoria's reign, with a hundred

thousand a year Home Counties domain.

Who wouldn’t trade for that in a trice!?

But in fact all mightn't be nice.

They died of gout, sepsis, and TB,

and suffered atrocious dentistry.

Breaking the bank at Monte Carlo,

Muggs my cat would mock the mice.

And worst of all, if Mary-Rose

metamorphosed into Madame Merle

or some presumptuous foreign girl . . .

What to do, Heaven only knows!

Friday, December 12, 2025

A Bag of Hammers

"If you can get dumb enough you can write marvelous poems about things that are really close to you."—William Stafford, "Some Suggestions from Experience"

What, he wondered, was "really close,"

near enough to be recognized, if seen,

and deployed, with progress made?

It could, of course, only be poetry!

What's closer to us than language,

the words that keep the world at bay?

Blunted by technology, might those belovèd fingerposts still point a way?

If so, hooray! Ignore the shilly-shallying

asininities of technology and speed

with your bag of hammers past the ding-

a-lings to the Muse's marvelous grimoire.

There’s always something, or someone,

to dumb down despite how dumb you are.

Illustration, engraved by Henry Bunbury, in Laurence Sterne's The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Confronted with Dr. Slop's pony and Dr. Slop himself on his back on the ground, with a spotted dog prancing over him, Obadiah tries to pull up his horse. A signpost with a hand points To Shandy Hall. Publish'd as the act directs 3d February 1773 by J. Bretherton, London.

Thursday, December 10, 2025