by Riku Majumder
To the Fire Thieves
Somewhere, someone’s always recalling you,
your paintings, sculptures, installations,
poems, novels, your self-portraits.
Someone who reclines in a dentist’s chair,
and hears the drill in the next room over,
or who lunches vacantly on apples and cheese,
or someone who’s simply stuck in traffic,
with no more stomach for the depravity
of the car radio’s news,
who inevitability snaps off the radio
and thinks of you and your works.
You brought it back,
the leaping tongues that lick us and renew us,
the fire you stole from the gods,
the gold that is not gold, yet is gold nonetheless,
truths that are not strictly speaking true,
images in metal, pencil, paint, ink, stone,
which stand for the verb to be.
These nights when I think of your lives,
lived in palpitating bodies like mine,
how you stood naked, here,
before the gods,
before your stolen goods,
clearly defending your theft—
these nights, I feel your faith.
These nights, I invite the eagles
to eat my liver, as Prometheus invited them daily.
I invite rebirth, which strictly speaking,
really happens.
Somewhere someone remembers you.
Just yesterday I called up you and your works
from a dentist’s chair.
Patric Pepper, a retired process engineer, holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. He has published two poetry chapbooks and a full-length collection, Temporary Apprehensions, which was awarded a Washington Writers’ Publishing House (WWPH) Poetry Prize. His work has recently appeared in Gargoyle, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and This Is What America Looks Like, a 2021 WWPH anthology. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, the poet Mary Ann Larkin.
Riku Majumder is a visual artist. He has been undergoing Courses on graphic from a reputed institution in India. He draws a painting and portrait on various landscape and he is a passionate artist. Leonardo da Vinci is his inspiration.