Today’s (optional) prompt is ekphrastic in nature – but rather particular! Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem from the point of view of one person/animal/thing from Hieronymous Bosch’s famous (and famously bizarre) triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights. Whether you take the position of a twelve-legged clam, a narwhal with a cocktail olive speared on its horn, a man using an owl as a pool toy, or a backgammon board being carried through a crowd by a fish wearing a tambourine on its head, I hope that you find the experience deliriously amusing. And if the thought of speaking in the voice of a porcupine-as-painted-by-a-man-who-never-saw-one leaves you cold, perhaps you might write from the viewpoint of Bosch himself? Very little is known about him, so there’s plenty of room for invention, embroidery, and imagination.
Momento Mori
6 April 20 0758
Hanging the beasts skull over the entrance to my hovel
The raven who has been following me for eons now perches above
A warning to others who haven’t shown their face that final demise may be approaching sooner than expected.
How long have I dwelled in these lands of the barren
How much longer will I stay
As I go out for the daily gatherings of food to maintain my place in this realm
When I decorated my home with the freshest kill
It was for others benefit,
With the arrival of the raven, I fear it is a reminder to me
Days upon countless days, as I have forgotten how to mark time,
As I approach home, the skull smiles
The raven smiles
I do not smile back
Having no remembrance of the starting line
I’ve long since given up on predicting when that other line shall be crossed
If there were others like me
They might know
But I haven’t seen them
And it occurs to me that once they saw my reminders they may not have been so bold
I took down the skull
And placed it inside
The raven stood at my door
But could not abide
I sat there staring at the bird and the bone
As I passed through the door
My story ended
Without a tome
