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Castle of the Eye, 11
Poetry by Jonathan Penton
Castle of the Eye, 11​
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The circles of hell stack.
They stack and they overlap
as intricately as their counterparts
on earth as it is in heaven.
All prisms remain combined
eternity looping back on itself
forever and ever, amen.
You do something different.
You stand straight and separated
your organs autonomous, untouching.
you reject the fundamentals of chemistry, of physics
refuse to participate in the Universe’s glorious song.
The whole world is your enemy, though it does not know it.
Nature offends your beautiful black eyes.
Minoru Niizuma
Japanese, 1930-98
Castle of the Eye, II, 1973
Marble
Gift of Sydney and Walda Besthoff, 98.143
Installation funded by the Harper & Mitchiner-
Gittinger Family Foundations
Jonathan Penton founded the electronic journal Unlikely Stories in 1998, and continues to run it as Editor-in-Chief. He has served in editorial, management, and technical roles for arts organizations including Big Bridge and Rigorous. He now serves as Technical Director for the New Orleans Poetry Festival. His own books of poems are BACKSTORIES (Argotist Ebooks), Standards of Sadiddy (Lit Fest Press), Painting Rust and Blood and Salsa (Unlikely Books), and Last Chap (Vergin’ Press). He lives in New Orleans with his family.
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