Departure of a Ghost
(watercolor/gouache by Paul Klee)
Paul Klee’s Departure of a Ghost
The ghost of my other self
my inner self, my alter self
lives with me, shares my bed,
my life as if it were its life
a place at my table
within my house
as if it were its own.
it stays it stays
whatever I might say
it lingers
like an uninvited guest
stayed too long.
I hear its disembodied voice
pleading for a place to be
alive like me
I know that it must go
and leave me to my life
alone with a kind of peace
I had never known.
And then it disappears
my other self a wisp of smoke
into the air
leaving me alone
the lesser of the two of us.
Small Garden Ghost
(watercolor by Paul Klee)
Paul Klee’s Small Garden Ghost
Where aging flowers go to die
to lose the color of their eyes and skin
bleached like bones on a desert flat
turning from blue to orange
and then to crackling brown
under an implacable sun
and then as transparent
as the shimmering heat
that hovers like a ghost.
Where a rose forgotten
becomes a forgotten ghost
In a garden on the edge of time
a rose no more a garden no more
just the ghost of yesterday
in a garden filled with death.
The Saint of Inner Light
(lithograph by Paul Klee)
Paul Klee’s The Saint of Inner Light
The first miracle
was an ever-burning light
deep within her soul
where no light enters
or escapes
glowing with the ferocity
of who she was
blue-green and brutal
before it flared
into an orange flame
of piety.
The second: the journey
naked alone afraid
to feel the tongues of his fire
licking at her breasts
as if she were being
tested and tortured
at the stake never to return
cleansed and beatified
to be canonized
The Saint of Inner Light.