For National Poetry Month, I’m sharing poems each day, one that I’ve written followed by whatever one from three sites that share a poem a day that strikes my fancy that day.

Epilogue II

I myself am hell, Robert. Like the painter
in Dali's "Impressions d'Afrique" at the easel,
right hand extended out to his audience,
eyes tracing it onto canvas with his left,
I have been fascinated by the blisters
on my middle finger, where the brush rests
and by the bottoms of my fingernails
turning lavender, the color of an illness.
But I am tired of it. Everyone's tired of it.
The cuticular colloquies. Climacteric
epiphanies like "the painter's vision is
not a lens, it trembles to caress the light,"
and "my mind's not right." Isn't the subject
of the painting what lies beyond this frame?

Today instead of sharing a poem from one of the poem-a-day websites, I thought I’d share a link to the poem I’m referencing above. That poem is “Skunk Hour” by Robert Lowell, whom I learned about in a poetry course in college. Lowell was the Father of Confessional Poetry, which focused on personal experiences and veered from traditional meter and form. My poem was an attempt at responding to his poem and the concept of confessional poetry too.

Addendum:

• For more, and to see Dali’s “Impressions d’Afrique,” here is a link to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, which has the painting in its collection. I think I had a poster of it in college.
• “Cuticular” is a made-up word, but “cuticula” is another word for “cuticle,” with the idea being talking about gazing at one’s own fingernails.