VERONICAS

      Veronica [Spanish]: 
       1. A pass in bullfighting
       2. A religious image on a shawl

I.

The green face of the old guitar
splits into fruitbowls
and castanets

the horse is wedged
into his own intestines

a veil in the hands of a schoolgirl
a tin can bent to work

cardboard accordions
hung with thumbtacks

horns at the heart of the corrida

a baboon with two headlights
a cow made out of handlebars

sheet metal shows its anatomy
 arguments among angles
 disagreements between degrees

eloquence of femur and fibulae
fibs of biceps

burping bones
 lying lascivious
on the beach

II.
Picasso is an orange:

peel off his Spanish skin
and you find
  succulent geometries
  vivid yellow veins

the juice of the sun
you lick,
 a red cat,
from your paws.

III.
Look at that man pick!

Doing the Retinal Breakdown,
struttin' the Collage Rag,

jamming on horsehairs
 and a jug of paint,

playing the changes
 on Valesquez,
swinging a standard
 by Van Gogh -

Doing the Monkey
 with a Minotaur,
twisting again
 with the Parti Communiste -

growling out the Guernica -
crooning down a dove -

rocking at the Anatomy,
boning up 
on skin tones,

shaking and shaping
the Hoodoo heart
of them old Barcelona blues.

IV.
The planes of her face
 come open like windows.
Her eye slides away.
Her nose folds neatly
 down the middle.
Half of her neck
 disconnects.

Her jaw swings open 
 like barroom doors.

Her hat is a lampshade.
Her temples are triangular.
Her cheekbones are stacked bowls.

Her face has been shuffled and redealt
and staggers like a ballroom staircase
 down to the corner of the canvas....

V.
My guitars bloom

in angular colors
and bent planes.

Their petals open
in figure eights,
 falling flat
on symmetrical faces,

shouting the black fruit of their music
through the stamen of six strings.

Come and see them
in my garden:

blocks of wood
 sliced like apples

thorns in a gunny sack
trained to attack

the lazy metal leaves
of a white and blue tree -

Your eye is invited 
to strum upon them

dancing to the outlines
of the odors of light.

          copyright 1986, James B. Chevallier