The Masters

1.
Is the Master you follow Basho or Bosch?
Is your glass half empty or half full?

If it’s Basho then empty your glass
& your mind along with it. But if it’s Bosch
then you’ll probably need to augment it
with a whole lot of things. Maraschino
cherries, coloured ice cubes, maybe one
of those little umbrellas. & that’s just for
starters. There’ll be so many additions
by the time you’ve finished that a
single glass could never hold them all.

2.
I am often told that what is left out
can be just as important as what’s
included. &, moreover, I adhere to the
precept, unlike those Flemish Masters who
include so much in their paintings that it’s
impossible to tell if anything is missing.
I mean, who’d notice the absence of the
kiwi in Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights,
painted several centuries before New Zealand
was discovered by Europeans, if it
wasn’t there? & who but a New Zealander
would notice the damn thing anyway
in that mosaic of activity? But Hieronymous
manages to give it the right balance, the right
to be there, even though it took a couple
of hundred years for that imagining to be
realised, & meant ignoring his patron
pleading from the studio door for
more naked lovers, fewer flightless birds.