JAMES BISHOP'S PAINTING

In a geometric shaping
from blocks of a shadow
in the museum emerges
stopping by corridors
as a poet side walks
stops along the wall viewing
an eccentric James Bishop
painting "News from Ferrara"
done in 1964
in subtle radiant colors
from perspective of a surface
combed by monochrome
in a retrospective
face of light
combed by monochrome
in a veil when silence
discloses the night
in grids and cubes
from forms and spaces
of a proto-minimalist
in a mixed message
with a sensualist language
transfixed an aesthete
which knocks me
off my feet
of artistic pleasure
from drawing out the antics
of an intellectual
in the textual pleasure
of this abstract expressionist.