Like Michelangelo
In the Sistine Chapel,
I lie on my back,
Trying to connect God to man:
Sometimes I feel an arm’s length from God,
Yet my scaffolding’s shaky. One day,
I paint smooth strokes of religion and afterlife;
The next, my tools undergo transformations.
I lose hold of faith and the future,
But continue to work—to paint over
Or to touch up my beliefs.
My whole life, I’ve drained myself,
Reaching to unite human fingers of concrete
To immortal palms of abstraction.
I turn away from the ceiling.
My mind conceives a picture on the wall:
It’s the Last Judgment.
God has already dug
His fingers through my soul.
My face hangs like tattered dough.

A saxophone player improvises
In front of Stephansdom.
His solos crisscross
Staves of tourists.
Nearby, a violinist
Plays a sonata.
Jazz collides with Mozart
Between the ears of air.
The rest of the day
I hear an insane wind
Talking to itself,
Cursing the sun,
Snorting the clouds,
Spitting,
Raining,
Raining.

The Savoysches Damenstift
Separates me from a sonata.
Sounds wade through the wind.
A man comes out of the water.
A gust of silence
Blows him back
Into a sea of ovals
Clinging to measured waves.