While I was researching the right jellyfish name to use for the poem below, I discovered that this one is called "Aurelia." Moon jellies, along with Gerard de Nerval have always been my favorite. How fucking cool is that?

FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN #2
Self Portrait at thirteen, Boulder, Colorado, 1972-1975

Emulsion a lock 
scrapes, a damp
weight blanket.

Helix-braided wool, chrysaoran
mane:                              dilated aperture

              a pew
                                   I capsize
              a door

                                        hair a camera grows.

Hmm...just add some upside-down crosses and I'd say it's a good idea... Sorry, I've been reading Paradise Lost and have Satan on the brain.

I have begun work on a project based on the photographs of Francesca Woodman. Yes, I know, another ekphrastic project hot on the heels of Film Poems, but the relationship between word and image is something which seems to be becoming quite important to me. Ultimately I find I relate to the visual arts and visual artists oftentimes moreso than I do with poets. I think our contemporary understanding of poetry is not as developed as our understanding of the visual arts. It is as if art history embraced Abstract Expressionism, but its veracity is still a topic of debate among literary historians and practitioners of writing. One finds a preponderance of the old "my 4-year-old-could-make-a-better-painting" argument, which would get you laughed out of an art history department, but in literature becomes a somehow viable critical stance.

Anyway, that diatribe I guess stands as an introduction to the work. As with any ekphrastic endeavor, there is an important relationship between the poem and the "object." Therefore I guess I will link to the photographs when they are available online from the title of the poem.

FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN #1
Easter Lillies, Boulder, Colorado, 1972-1975 11.1cm x 11.3cm

The 2 flutes
sprout out

the green axis the
  labrys-axe

bilateral symmery:
   spine bisects a

 legs & arm
   spine all alone

this headless
I spine alone

I me the navel pit
 I the spine bud

  hilt of mind

was never we
under middle grey

the 2 fingers

  I always 2

The chatelaine discusses my Film Poems here. Thanks, Eileen!

OK, now I have arrived.

Pop Art

Assuming that you didn't already know that this is a "Hot Fudge Sundae" Pop-Tart, which painter would you reckon was responsible? I am going to say Rothko.

Also, what other junk food looks like Abstract Expressionism?

I have a few copies of the chapbook I did for the Sonabooks gift exchange project left that I am willing to trade for stuff (your chapbook, brownies, etc.).

From the introduction:

The source text for these poems was stolen from Harold Brainerd Hersey's book, Night, originally published in 1923. The poems in this volume were accompanied by illustrations in the period style (art nouveau) by Elliott Dold. I have stolen some of these, also, unaltered.

In addition to Night, Hersey also published a book of Cowboy verse, a critical analysis of pulp novels and Helpful Hints on War Risk Insurance, Etc, among others. Dold did illustrations for numerous books and pulp magazines.

I became fascinated by the obsessive vocabulary and thinly veiled sadomasochism of Hersey's somewhat tawdry original, and the way that these texts interacted with the illustrations, and decided to embark upon a project of "literary conservation." The poems in here include every word and mark of punctuation found in the Hersey originals of the same name; the words themselves have been rearranged by my whim, and in accordance with subjects that differ from the originals. I see this as a way of granting the original texts renewed vigor, allowing them to continue to exist into the future. Also, in keeping with one of the favorite subjects of the original author, the process of creating these texts was a kind of bondage game; one composes within the tight fetters of the original works and their own obsessions and compulsions.

With thanks to the original author and illustrator. Peace to their ghosts.




NOCTURNE

clasped is cool and currents
The cup

of sweet steam, the stars
are She, arched;

drunken among the dead
Will fill darkness dropping

fragrant for fingers
that mad cup again

has sunken Down in
Her strangely wet lips;

the monotonous moonlight
in her Most molten body

tasted it through Her
The trees They thirst !

he rests under her
Weaving Through the ages;

Listen to still layers
like bolts out of rock:

.........

All
one in
the glisten,

idolatrous

Soooo behind on email, will catch up today if I do not have a temp. assignment.

Sorry all!