Notes from an Open Channel
1
Through honeyed leagues of the Northland Border,
a black bear approached a nice lump of fur by Joseph
Beuys or a mud-scape by Anselm Kiefer, a mock
Tantric blue by Ellsworth Kelly----I became
a student of Pollock’s blizzards of salt loosened
upon Manhattan and all the broken statuary at the Met,
a personal sort of time oddly subordinated to
oppressive subject matters concerning the pull
between the easy/ not so easy emotions and images--
a larger than life crucifix more like a floater
in a tired eye than a body. Don’t we all flinch
from something that shuffles slantwise through the sleet?
A fragment of what is to come, a good rutsch into
the new year and/or a wall broken loose, something
without eyes. Hard bathroom yellow tile color of
the house where I live as an exotic and of course
in the sun, tempers stay above 90 dehumanizations.
An army of houses that grope their way through
the dark. When did afternoon at the Pines become
such a burden--Something to discard late at night
along with certain perishables. Under the yellowing
light the pickle jar, then peeled peaches.
We drop all pretense. Maybe not. I’ve dusted
off my old answering machine and am going through
the fires of purgatory after having walked the plank
between canvas and typewriter. A skein of geese
white against blue—-Some are outliers, disconnected
from the rest in a tic-tac-toe pattern or the sign
of the cross. I’m off to see the Auto Body Wizard
with his carpet of stars. Remember, not all those
who wander are lost. Here is a map to fold out area
top themes, weird joys, embattled alleys, districts
of intimacy, willful grease smudge,avenues of relief---
A succession of losses, dissonant, temporal.
Walking through inevitable constructs, a collision
of realms I knew many ways of being caught.
2
Intervals of blank stares encompassed by a squad
of cookies in their little trays. I was beginning
to catch the writing bug like Dean, but lacked
the bandwidth to take on anything really new.
I thought of Spain before Rudy was born,
and the weird phosphorescent void of Lincoln Tunnel.
A slow opening in the sycamores on a sunlit
morning was the only thing between us and an Andalusia
of random propositions and these far out worlds
and seasons, more suggestive of affirmation,
fate and the funny scent from the fungus chewing
its way out of boxes—-Psyllid pouring from
car window. Colors coalesce black and maroon,
inspired by Spain and the film we watched
together on BBC’s Channel Four. Anything can be
dispensable and invaluable—-understated
flirtations, a numb sky, oxymoronic phenomena
like “affordable housing”, the evanescence
of vapor, hard water, the beauty of drifting
trash or a spare cigarette lit and cupped
against the wind in a lyrical gesture
all can be reduced to its nuisances, belabored
propositions or a litany of excuses with some
nagging nostalgia for an Iberian shore
taken in small doses. The list goes on and all
around its margins lies the channel
or a new category representing the adventitious.
That’s how it goes. This is an account of
the rugged turn into the past. What may be
available to all. All understand the magic
regarding what is open to me in the repetition.
But as you, dear reader, are here we could
begin. You are an in depth person. Proud and sad
with a face for all weathers and seasons.
Let me enlarge on that later. I think this is
an act of repositioning-- or a darkening of
responsibility.
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