Ermitage, Dance Poem by Joseph S. Josephides

You like a vodka to recover from exhibits? A shocking
exhibition of Peter with mummies, disfigured embryos!
Ekaterina is not here to guide you, followed by mice.

Enter Ermitage without sword, hat, award for leaders,
watch out the fragile, don’t talk, don’t yawn. It’s pity
that some impressionist painters are absent; in secret
Iosif was exchanging them with tractors from America
(until we threatened the heritage of his home, Georgia) .

A hope in our century is to dance sticked together.
But first let us help the paintings escape from Adolf,
we’ll tell the students what the empty frames contained
(a smart management of art stirs the imagination)

Come on, Matisse, lead our Dance with your dance.
Pablo, invite your woman who drinks absent to dance,
you who carries squash; you there sitting under the tree,
also you with the umbrella; you, who pose in the halls
you, who hold back a shawl; dance Flora with flowers,
tell death to wait; young stand and don't bend so much.

From the squares, red and blue, let us join this dance
around the globe, a prayer for ethos and culture
to come back; only thus I could see them dancing:
Goghen, who found a resort in Polynesia’s bosom,
Heraclitus, who escaped to play dices with the kids.


© JosephJosephides