from _Fragmentary Ekphrases Based On Paintings Made By Monkeys_

[Green and yellow acrylic; by Gipsy, a chimpanzee]

“If the spectator tries to follow the pathways, his gaze goes astray, lost in the brush-strokes; Ariadne’s thread gets tangled and frayed in these painted marks.”
—Thierry Lenain, Monkey Painting




Like a flame framed within flame,
        or as Eli Cash
might     say:     Medusa’s
     tresses
    before a   friscalating
mirror
              To gaze on this
not stonily
   but
to
meander,
       astonished, within
the
                      nomadic maze
of metaphor,
     let’s call it:
        “a
yellow hyacinth
              unspooling
itself,”
              let’s christen it:
“the shadow-
    play
  of     a hypnotized
 hydra”