Lines from this poem accompanied the painting Chiens de Cythère (Dogs of Cythera) (1963) in the exhibition  "Dorothea Tanning: Murmurs" at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, organized in collaboration with Alison Jacques Gallery, London (May 11 - June 27, 2015).  The show explored echoes of myths and legends in Tanning’s work through poetry, with examples of poems that were especially meaningful to the artist.  

J. D. McClatchy wrote a  tribute to Dorothea Tanning for the show and recorded the poems included in the gallery.  View a gallery of images here and listen to his reading of the full poem below.

These lines were quoted in the show:

But coasting nearer, close enough to land

To scatter flocks of birds as we passed by,

We saw a tall cypress-shaped thing at hand –

A triple gibbet black against the sky.

 

Ferocious birds, each perched on its own meal,

Were madly tearing at the thing that hung

And ripened; each, its filthy beak a drill,

Made little bleeding holes to root among.

 

The eyes were hollowed.  Heavy guts cascading

Flowed like water halfway down the thighs;

The torturers, though gorged on these vile joys,

Had also put their beaks to use castrating

 

The corpse.  A pack of dogs beneath its feet,

Their muzzles lifted, whirled and snapped and gnawed;

One bigger beast amidst this jealous lot

Looked like an executioner with his guard….

 

The sky was lovely, and the sea divine,

but something thick and binding like a shroud

Wrapped my heart in layers of black and blood;

Henceforth this allegory would be mine.

 

O Venus! On your isle what did I see

But my own image on the gallows tree?

O God, give me the strength to contemplate

My own heart, my own body without hate!