[Rick Mullin]

The Rictus Wheel

After Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Triumph of Death

Your scepter and your armor and your gold
collide and clatter with the grinning bone
whose hourglass and sword will bleed you cold.

The rictus wheel sets high above the wold
where raptors of the burning lake are shown
your scepter and your armor and your gold.

The young will pile up sideways with the old
in sudden deference to the chaperone
whose pendulum and sword will bleed you cold.

A pit where your constituents are poled
guffaws beside the ruins of your throne.
Your scepter and your armor and your gold

add color to the weary soul you sold.
It hangs in the Museo del Jamón
where standing time and sword will bleed you cold.

The thin men of Adipocere and Mold
roll everywhere. Cry foul? You’ll cry alone.
Your scepter and your armor and your gold,
your sundial and your sword, will bleed you cold.

____
S1L2–various descriptions of death, most recently “Jack of Bone” is now: grinning bone.
I will leave it alone.

S5L2 was: roll everywhere. Cry foul, but you were told.
Previous change was to: You’ve lost your muscle tone.


S3L2 was: into the earth. You’ll kneel before the crone
S3L3 “sands of time” is now “pendulum”

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Rick—

A very haunting villanelle. You capture many of the images in Bruegel’s painting, and the /ō/ assonance evokes the mournful wail of the dying.

I’m not sure what a “rictus wheel” is. “Rictus” means a frozen, grimacing smile. I thought perhaps you were imagining the wheel of fortune, which is often portrayed with a grinning figure of death in medieval art, but I couldn’t find this image in the painting. Your reference to “the crone” in S3L2 with an hourglass mentioned in the next line suggests the allegorical figure of Fate. The Museo del Jamón puzzled me, too, but I did some googling and discovered that the Museum of Ham in Madrid is only a few blocks from the Prado where Bruegel’s Triumph of Death is displayed. I don’t quite get the connection.

I assumed that the “you” being apostrophized was Death, so I was confused by S5 and the reference to “the weary soul you sold” that is now hanging in the Museum of Ham. Clearly I’m missing something. I will continue to contemplate the enigmas.

Glenn

[Rick Mullin]

Hi Glenn,

I want to jump in quickly to say that I have some strong, if perhaps contrary, ideas about an ekphrasis. I believe it's about making something in one field of art capturing the quality and value of the source in another without merely describing the inspirational source. It's comparable to my thoughts on portraiture capturing a soul and not a mere likeness. It is the creation of a work on its own. I feel that a great many of the poems put forward as ekphrasis really are descriptions or mere likenesses of the source, thus my concern about being contrarian here.

In the case of this poem there are several likenesses and some created elements (I think two, the crone and the introduction of the Museo del Jamon) in keeping with the spirit of the paintings. The latter is an element of dark humor which operates in the picture. There is also the play on the word "polled". You are right about the museum.

The rictus wheel refers to the wheel at the end of a pole to which people were tied, exposing them to the elements, especially carrion-eating birds. The horizon in the painting has several.

I was hoping it was pretty clear that the "you" is not death, but the victim of death, one in particular. That individual is clearly in and arguably at the root of the picture, which is easily googleable if not seared into the reader's memory from a previous encounter.

Thanks,
Rick

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Rick—

I see that the “you” refers to the figure in the lower left corner—an armored king with a dropped scepter being mocked by a skeleton standing over him. That realization, along with your explanation of the rictus wheels (I was wondering what those were for) helped me to understand the poem much better.

Your thoughts on ekphrasis were very interesting and helpful to me, since I write quite a few ekphrastic poems.

I couldn’t help thinking about your poem in relation to Auden’s poem, “The Fall of Icarus,” also an ekphrasis focusing on a character who appears as a tiny detail in a painting by Bruegel—but in the lower right corner.

Glenn

[Hilary Biehl]

I love this, Rick. I immediately got that the "you" being addressed was not death but an individual with worldly power.

I'm not sure about "muscle tone" and think perhaps "hour glass" should be one word?

But it's really splendid.

[Jim Ramsey]

Hi Rick,

I think you can add "rictus wheel" to your list of created elements in your ekphrastic. The only incident of the term I could find on the internet was yours. "Breaking wheel" was the common nomenclature for the torture device and method depicted in the painting. I like the piece. No nits, but I have to ask, do you hear "wold" very often this side of the Atlantic? Mind you, I like it, I'm just curious.

All the best,
Jim

[Joe Crocker]

I was mostly aware of Brueghel from Christmas cards of Hunters in the snow, and Auden’s poem about Icarus,. So the triumph of death was a nasty surprise. Your villanelle is very effective. I like the way it picks up grisly details shown, while coming back to the repetends, emphasising Death's inevitable triumph. Excellent use of the villanelle form.

I don’t know what a swagger bone is (like a swagger stick?) but I like it and the “guffawing pit” is also a sharp poetic summary of the horror shown.

“Wolds” in the UK are usually gently rolling chalk hills, quintessentially England’s green and pleasant land, so I wasn’t sure they worked as a description of the hills shown here. I wondered whether you could refer to the dark bell being rung in the top left hand corner and bring “tolled” in as a rhyme?

“Constituents” has connotations of democracy, elections and government. The people referred to would more likely be “subjects”?

“Cry foul” sounds a little anachronistic. It is typically used in sports reporting when a player is writhing round exaggeratedly trying to the draw the referee’s attention to some, usually minor, misdemeanour. And this is much more ghastly than a misdemeanour.

Joe

[Rick Mullin]

Thanks Hilary,

I switched "muscle tone" back to a variant on the original line, which ignored the rhyme requirement. I closed up hourglass as well. Glad you like this one.

Thanks Jim,

"rictus wheel" is my expression, I doubt it's been used to describe the torture wheels. I imagine them in Bruegel's paintings as weather- and torture-beaten, looking like a round rictus. It also seems appropriate to the whole death business. "wold" is a word I doubt I've ever spoken and here might be the first time I ever wrote it! Thanks for your encouragement on this one.

Thanks Joe,

Happy to increase your exposure to Bruegel! Fantastic painter, one of my favorites.
As for "wold", I brought it in roughly familiar with its meaning and provenance. Then I looked it up and liked using it here for the contrast it establishes between the still idyllic landscape and the deathscape that springs up. I don't want to simply describe the crags in the painting. Note my pontification on ekphraksis above. Similarly, the bell having tolled would add another merely descriptive element rather than one with something of my feeling, most of which has to do with the surprise of death.
I'm used to "cry foul" in a much broader context. Tonally, it steps out of line I suppose, but I also think that's a way of setting up the close, which a reader more or less sees coming in any villanelle unless massive liberties are taken. The idea is to give the thing a bit of a rattle before the couplet.

Glad this seems to be going over. More on who "you" is--it's anchored to an address to the king in the corner, the powerful, but my intent is a memento mori. You is all of us.

Thanks again all.

[Susan McLean]

Hi, Rick, I got that the "you" in the poem was partially addressed to the reader. I like the title. It reminded me of the clock in the painting in which a grinning skeleton is pointing to the hour, of the torture device in the background, and of the wheel of Fortune, in which once you reach the top you fall off as it keeps spinning. I didn't know what to make of "swagger bone," which would make more sense as "swaggering bone" and that would also help keep your meter from becoming too metronomic. Throughout, I thought the poem could benefit from more metrical variation.

I thought "Adipocere" was a poor choice because most readers will neither know what it means nor how to pronounce it. It stops them cold when you want them to keep going. I wasn't keen either on "crone" or "Museo del Jamón" which just seem to be there to fill out the rhymes. The thing about skeletons is that they seem genderless unless they are garbed in a way that identifies them as male or female.

Anyway, these are just my reactions and won't necessarily align with your taste or intentions. But it is a strong poem and could be made even stronger with a few tweaks.

Susan

[Rick Mullin]

Thanks Susan,

Especially glad to hear you like this villanelle.

As for swagger bone: I'm deploying it as a sort of nick name or type, along the lines of copy cat. Plodding IP is a constant problem for me. But I think it can be read in such a way that relative stresses lighten the load.

Note that I have turned the crone into a chaperone at your prompting. "crone" was "rhyme-driven" and two easy. And too likely to send the reader looking for a female skeleton in the picture--you make a good point about gender. I like the idea of death rolling in loco parentis. Also, "sudden" is a nice shock.

The soul hanging in Museo del Jamón, on the other hand, is non-negotiable! ~,:^) Indeed, the Museo is a real place, not far from the Prado where Bruegel's picture hangs, but much closer to the Plaza Mayor in Madrid. Essentially a big shiny butcher’s establishment with rack upon rack of hanging ham. Not to be missed on any trip to the Spanish capital!

Thanks again,
Rick