Misinformed
Genie
(acrylic and paper on canvas; 8 x 10 inches)
image by Nathan Spoon
An Exhalation of
Springheads
The hungry sheep
look up, and are not fed…
―John Milton
In
the beginning, a single cell divides
itself,
becoming two cells in symbiosis,
giving
a third dimension to words spoken
(once
written), like Cerberus with an extra
serpentine
pair of eyes gazing into
ambient
spaces, until it becomes clear
that
three times two is six and two
more
is a new plant leafing itself into
a
row of jelly bean-colored houses,
along
the water running through
Burano,
Italy, I can’t get those
figureheads
off my bed. Or off
the
walls! My forehead has grown
embarrassingly
smaller than yours,
whoever
you may be. I designed a labyrinth
to
thrive inside and I hid the prototype
underneath
a stone near my outdoor plants –
also
embarrassingly smaller than yours.
Now,
from a bottom corner of the canvas,
nymphs
are sprinkling leaves on my head
which
is secretly hosting a hive of bees.
I’m
making honey and a movie trailer.
The
honey is sweet, and it sticks to bones.
If
you like the trailer, I’ll make the movie,
which
will make you love me doubly, love me
two
times two divided by our unruly, wayward
children.
Fractious, if passages can wind
into
abysses blank as frozen zaffer,
as
the trees give rise to a hive by leaning,
finally,
into Hell. I like being wayward
and
drifting drunkenly in a boat copied
and
pasted onto the river Styx. This is what
happens
after spending more than two hundred
billable
hours kicking up extra dopamine with
other
runners. Suddenly you are accidental besties
with
people who were probably antelopes
in
recent lifetimes! Tomorrow I’ll peel
away
from work and visit Mansard.
The
place is a marsh and isn’t a marsh
mostly
as unassuming as Westhaven?
Let’s
say I’m a map and you’re “You are here” and someone
else,
we don’t know who, is lost and needs our help.
When
the planet is sleeping inside
a
gigantic piece of Silly Putty,
while
Platonic wings emerge on randomized
whims
projected from the insides of flowers,
there
is something unsayable
(which
isn’t being mentioned now) that flashes
from
the depths of insentience. It’s beautiful!
―Nathan
Spoon & Tom C. Hunley
