Antarctic winter imitated. I am living inside a refrigerator set up in a cold store. Beside me there is a bird that would escape if it could. It is my first Assumption; & I am trying to keep it by keeping it as close to suspended animation as I can. The bird is unhappy. It is a summer bird. When I first felt it fluttering a few ingested pellets of dry ice were enough to quieten it. But as it grew I was forced to move lodgings, was forced to move my chilling mode from solid boulder blocks to gaseous intake. Now when I exhale my frozen breath is fuel that drives rockets to the moon. It does not wake the bird but something inside it awakens. I sense its struggles as it recognizes flight, is driven mad by its proximity.
Saturday, May 11, 2024
#538 La Magie Noire (1946)
Saturday, April 27, 2024
#537 L'Avenir
Everything in the distance seems so picture perfect — the stars, the hills in shadow. & those things up close — the open window, the pristine bench with that loaf so fresh you would swear you could smell it — refresh that first impression of perfection. Then doubts start creeping in. Why are there no lights dotting the hillside? Why are there no knick knacks around the house to indicate some evidence of human inhabitation? Who, therefore, baked the loaf? Is it really real? Or is this image of the future a wry obser- vation by the painter that life as we currently know it might eventually vanish from the planet because hu- mankind cannot live by bread alone?
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
#536 Elseneur
The trees grown up & shaped to repli- cate the castle that once stood here. The place no longer a hamlet. Now over- grown. No longer a place for Ham- let to call Home.
Monday, April 15, 2024
Friday, April 12, 2024
#534 Le Monde des Images
The window pane cannot encompass the setting of the sun. It cracks — obviously not double-glazed. & that image, not on the floor, camera ob- scura style, but, in a similar fashion, trapped at a point in its pathway, imprinted on the glass. Now, on the floor, shards of sunset — clouds, reflections on the sea, sun. Later, after he had initiated the shattering of the glass, Magritte wrote: If what is at least possible should truly hap- pen one day, I would hope that a poet or philosopher... would explain to me what these shards of reality are supposed to mean. I leave that in the inexplicable basket. But, if there is some- one out there…I'm listening.
Thursday, April 11, 2024
#533 L'Ocean
He gets excited when he's near the ocean. She is more reserved, thinks of the scallop shell she emerged on, wonders where it now is. It looks at first like an unequal relationship; but it seems to work.
Saturday, March 23, 2024
#532 La Saveur des larmes (1946)
The stalk broken, perhaps in preparation for pesto or some similar condiment. Not used. The flavor unconducive for garnish — too much sad- ness, tastes too much of tears.
Saturday, March 09, 2024
#531 La Veillée
A lighted candle & holder cut from a music score. Papier collé, glued paper, evoking techniques from some decades before, invoking thoughts of his brother, a musician, poet. Laid beside the candle, eggs in a nest. Though not known where they were laid. Nor known which came first, the candle or the eggs. Not that that matters. Take notice of the notes, their similarity to DNA, the genetic information of the music. & the eggs, the ongoing vigil waiting for them to hatch, to bring more life in to the world as we hold the candle up to illuminate their progress. Note the frisson be- tween them, candle & eggs, the magic imparted by being together, the dust of dusk accompanying them, adding to the mystery.
Friday, February 23, 2024
#530 Le Somnambule
It should have been a one- pipe problem, Watson, but my sleep patterns have been irregular lately, have moved from the no sleep of cocaine use to an ersatz sleepwalking, full of fear, as if the hound of the Baskervilles was hard on my heels. I wake, immediately reach for another pipe. Have lost count of how many I’ve smoked in the last few weeks. & now I’m having visions, will suddenly see an owl in my chair, my pipe in its mouth; & we have moved from Baker Street to somewhere in the country. & the owl peers at me through its saucer eyes, takes the pipe out of its mouth, looks down at it & says to me: “This is not a pipe.” & what it means by that, Watson, is the problem. Is beyond my sphere of expertise.
Sunday, February 18, 2024
#529 Les Pierreries
So much alike as we peer from the box we could pass as brothers. But what’s in a box is often more than just contain- ment, what reso- nates can be more than beauty is. Gems we might some- times be referred to as; but what other facets will be displayed when the lid is lifted?
Monday, February 05, 2024
#528 La Joconde (1962)
The slice-of-sky curtain is center stage — or should that be center plage? Behind it are two other curtains, red this time, ready, when the bell starts to ring, to move slightly forward & draw to- gether to conceal the other & leave only sand & sea in sight.
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