La Bocca Della Verità
. . . One of those pleasant old watercolors of Rome . . . the little piazza called the Mouth of Truth after the big marble face of the sun in the church portico, whose mouth was supposed to snap shut if you put your hand in it and told a lie, but which was perhaps an ancient sewer lid . . .
—Eleanor Clark‚ Rome and a Villa
I thrust my fingers, crossed in an artful lie,
into the mouth of truth, the fluid of sex,
the darkness of death, murmuring tuneful noises.
The porch of a church ought to be good for a gamble.
In front, the face of the sun. Behind, the temples,
one round, the Temple of Vesta, home and hearth,
one square, the Temple della Fortuna Virile.
Both sexes call on us to tell the truth.
into the mouth of truth, the fluid of sex,
the darkness of death, murmuring tuneful noises.
The porch of a church ought to be good for a gamble.
In front, the face of the sun. Behind, the temples,
one round, the Temple of Vesta, home and hearth,
one square, the Temple della Fortuna Virile.
Both sexes call on us to tell the truth.
If I speak out, will doves and bluebirds descend
and the butterflies of the world slip their leashes?
If I tell, will tigers carry me to Tibet
and elect me poet-priest of a sunlit island?
I have turned away from the pleaders
and pretended to be asleep.
Only a stone’s throw from Cloaca Maxima
I cringe in the lap of the great goddess,
shrinking from these monumental Roman exertions.
Who asked my soul to magnify the Lord?
and the butterflies of the world slip their leashes?
If I tell, will tigers carry me to Tibet
and elect me poet-priest of a sunlit island?
I have turned away from the pleaders
and pretended to be asleep.
Only a stone’s throw from Cloaca Maxima
I cringe in the lap of the great goddess,
shrinking from these monumental Roman exertions.
Who asked my soul to magnify the Lord?
Take the right hand. Place it in the sun’s mouth.
If art is not “a lie that tells the truth‚”
why else, except in aid of some good god,
should I hope to tell the world my kind of lie
and not be swallowed by a river of darkness?
If art is not “a lie that tells the truth‚”
why else, except in aid of some good god,
should I hope to tell the world my kind of lie
and not be swallowed by a river of darkness?
I dare to pledge my powers to the sun.
How coldly will the marble give its answer?
If I have truly lied in the mouth of truth
let my right hand forget her cunning.
How coldly will the marble give its answer?
If I have truly lied in the mouth of truth
let my right hand forget her cunning.