AP photo
By
Betsy Mars
C’est une pipe bomb
Magritte painted a picture of a pipe
and we began to doubt
in this meta world of art and artifice
what our eyes behold,
what we are told –
in such a surrealistic time
when the president jokes
about a bad hair day
as his populace mourns
on a blood-drenched prayer day.
A pipe bomb is not a pipe
in a bubble-wrapped mailer.
A racially motivated murder
is not terrorism if the man with a gun
is not a person of color.
We preach to the choir.
A whispered prayer
becomes a congregant’s scream.
The Treachery of Images –
oil on canvas is harmless
until you light it on fire.
Betsy Mars
Betsy Mars is a Connecticut-born, mostly California-raised poet and educator. Her parents gave her an early appreciation for language and social justice, which her childhood years in Brazil reinforced. She has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from USC which she puts to no obvious use. A mother, avid traveler, and animal lover, her work has recently appeared in The Rise Up Review, Writing in A Woman’s Voice, and The Ekphrastic Review, as well as in a number of anthologies and the California Quarterly.
Thank you! I would also love to see that, but the chosen image was also effective in bringing the current realities home. The title came to me and established the poem. I hadn't known the actual name of the work until I researched it.
Wonderful poem. I'd love to see it paired, illustrated with the Magritte. Would make it even more powerful.