The General’s Family Portrait
After De Chirico’s painting
“The Red Tower.”
Plum-curved, placenta-red,
ragged-edged. Capped
by crooked, castellated teeth
above thin window slits –
and the enormous gaping doorway,
half-hidden by the red-roofed
seedling buildings sprouting
around the base, all deferring
to the general on the black horse,
whose shadow reaches
to the far edge of the smokestack.
Beyond the horse-shadow,
two faint markers, like children’s jerseys
thrown to the ground, frame the bleeding
path leading to the smallest building,
huddled tight against the tower.
Back here in the darkness,
the lines are straight
and mathematical – a definite border
marking the boundary
between known and unknown.
The beckoning curves begin
in the orange half-light -
in the hills, and the doorway,
and the staggering tower,
and the sky emptying
like a purple flower
dropping dead petals
on a plum-colored path.
–alex grant
View De Chirico's The Red Tower.
"The General's Family Portrait" previously appeared in Ekphrasis.