Prelude

Brandon Shimoda

with Agnes Pelton’s Prelude, 1943

The repercussions of war   the multiplying of god’s face
in a strobe-like assault of diffidence and death
is in the lower right-hand corner 
of the primarily yellow painting

of war
In the cave   

in the lower right-hand corner
jumble of cave

like sticks   like camouflage traps

or where the elders go to meditate   self-immolate   
fall forward 
into the universe of their bowls

The cave 
is where the war is 
tea

red   blood red
bloody cheeks
bodies exposed,
movies projected on skin turned 
inside-out

the rest of the painting is yellow
Gears turning in the sky   yellow gears 
the color of geese 
or men choking  

children’s eyes   
who watch them choking

+

how many flowers die on tables
on a roof   held up with mold

the bionic vase
in which all pets of memory are born, 

the pasteurization of war 
in a cave   

a glare
the dystrophic loneliness of a desert 
wanderer 

or wandering the desert
or the desert wandering   

egg is 
thick 

as the trunk of a tree
cross-sected   

I lost too once   
stared into the spectacle of deceptive coloration
while war was snapping in
the lower right-hand corner