Michael Harlow

Vlaminck’s tie / the persistent imaginal  

Vlaminck’s tie survives.
It is made of wood & painted yellow;
it has purple polka-dot moons
that once were sighted floating around
the town, walking Vlaminck in every
direction.

                 When I tell my son
it is resting now in a glass case,
it looks like, say, the beginning
of the world, he says, measuring
the space between his outstretched
hands, oh – like a crusader’s sword
you mean.

                 Yes, perhaps that’s it
I reply, looking out over the yellow
fields, the tall sword-grass battling
the air. I see : now I see Vlaminck
in his wooden tie sailing right by
the day-moon, milky & far.  

From Vlaminck’s Tie (Auckland/Oxford UP, 1985)
© Michael Harlow
 

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Last updated 24 March, 2005