~la Cave Poem by Mike Finley

Down the twisty corridors
The animals dance by torchlight
The bison and the bison,
Wild bull and wild bull,
The reindeer curtsies to his partner
Which licks him on the brow
The wet muzzles of ancient cows
Exhale snow in the crowded hall.
The walls grow closer
And the calcite drips longer
And the jaws of the father
Grind on the son.
The mountain of ice
And the museum of fire,
'the colors of oxide and manganese mingle
Concavities bloom and convexities swell
And the mountain museum devours
A hillful of crucified Christs
Just back from hell
There is Vincent shot through the lung
And Henri drowned in the ink in his well
Verlaine shoots Rimbaud
And Rimbaud shoots Verlaine
And there is Picasso
Bowing before the rhino
And there is Duchamps
On his stuttering staircase
There the herd of horses of Chagall
Float upside down on the flickering wall
And ice and stalactite take their toll
of the paintings
the bear and the elk
and the ox and the bull
the cave grinds against the bones of all
and sunshine collapses
to a tiny black ball