Rembrandt sat down with the biographer.
Amsterdam population, bewitching slum.

Outside, hotly whirring tufts, candescent
linens drying that knew the orange castle.

After a glass of malted gin the portentous
hand laid its Aramaic hex on roast oyster.

Christ’s twelve disciples fasten to a prow;
they huddle inside this glittering spyglass.

Maine of wharves delirious, corked spice
barrels hang in strange, speckled Jamaica.

Ask the flower boats in Bruges for a bulb
and whence the gondoliers’ mottled eyes,

Edison’s still burning filament, grist mills,
lighthouse keeper bald in a garlanded orb.

But, soft!—a bucket spill is abridged and
the flintlocks click to accompany squints.