Friday, July 26, 2019

Serena Mayer, A Melody to a Chord (Ten Titles by Joan Miró)


Ladders Cross the Blue Sky in a Wheel of Fire 
(1953), Joan Miró  

  

A Melody to a Chord
(Ten Titles by Joan Miró)


Ladders Cross the Blue Sky in a Wheel of Fire

      lit by unseen presence
        not trying to evolve
every dab of colour
    cleaner than clean from the process
          no discernible effect
 more worried than we were.

                persistent celebration
        Military-style camps
   without written slogans.
no longer the product of tensions
 a melancholy haze over everything
             not comic, but grotesque.

            the possibility of opposing
       high-density bombardment
she agreed at once.
 The light of the setting sun
              glistened like snow.
        Every fraction of an inch

   turned back to seek for the door
       paid no attention to the old.
            movement in order to convey
   being caught up into Heaven
         where they could not find him.
                     And Jacob slept alone.



The Smile of Flamboyant Wings

A star fell from the sky; then another.
         sense of space and flow
     body language
               formidable nuances

the skin of things
      gathered by the shell of her ear
        simply looking in the mirror.
   dreamed of catching her as she flew



Woman in Front of the Stars

       sky could be so many things
    future she had long dreamt

       sky could be so many things
           feel their shape and density

       sky could be so many things
  outstretched arms and scraps of cloth.

       sky could be so many things
          more stars than grains of sand

       sky could be so many things
    streaks and incrustation

       sky could be so many things
                  attracted by the light

       sky could be so many things
formal language of her own

       sky could be so many things
                            play of lines in water

       sky could be so many things
   She walked into her past.



The Escape Ladder

           coping strategies
      shared memories

 made as though to say goodbye
                studied composition

              climbing up and into
    an abandoned drifting boat



The Nightingale’s Song at Midnight
     and the Morning Rain

               firefly luminosity
    , magic persists

This is the world
           a metaphor for later

      bottles of water upturned
          indoor storm

  next morning the world
                heathered blue

      a different breaking light



Figures in the Night

           entombment of a myth
fantastic posturing
      refusing to be born
              these realms are home terrain
   all asking the same questions

                   I forgot sundown.



Message from a Friend

   woke with eager stories
       incomprehension to speak
 here to give voice to this
     missives from a dank nowhere

   What did you say the name was?

 tells nobody and nobody asks
        only to keep them apart
snatches of conversation
  noises from beneath

                 An opportunity to hear



The Vowel Song

      unblinking eye
inadvertently visionary
         ordering chance
                  worn-out words
   more process than outcomes

      unpredictable eruption
          semantic construction
  threads carry information
                     boundaries or bridges
    how a word can be written



Bird, Insect, Constellation

      could hardly be more confusion
     gunshot, an explosion of feathers
        don’t want to hurt anything any more

          long term memory vanishing
    end of the event reported
                   her artistic universe

epitaphs on tombstones
        photographs of dead people
  can't see something any more

           refashioning materials
  unlimited airspace
       and faraway stars



Woman, Bird, Star

   She’s summer
       she can hear the sea
  She asked
     She didn’t have far to go.

    She shakes her head.
     She holds her breath.
  She looks out at the sea.
        , looks up at the sky

She stayed.
             She sees only the sun
    She began to sleep,
         she leaves

Crossing the blue sky
                  in a wheel of fire
       allotted familiarity
    doesn’t have far to go.



—Serena Mayer


Monday, July 22, 2019

Erik-John Fuhrer, Selected Asemic Work


Apocalypse
Erik-John Fuhrer 



Swarm
Erik-John Fuhrer



Haunted
Erik-John Fuhrer

Monday, July 15, 2019

Ed Coletti, Mosel


Great Fire, image by Ed Coletti 



Mosel


meandering
                        feminine
            curvy

German
                        tributary

            türmhaus

sunglow
                        pincushion

            emerald

                        Riesling

wineyard
                        ticklish

            axillary

mountain
                        perch




—Ed Coletti


Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Keegan Cook Finberg, excerpts from The Thought of Preservation


Sighting, image by Beth Holladay




To Enhance the Quality of Life in Germantown

salvaged curb stones
falsely impugn

the Floral detailing
Delightful rustic

galloping pony
You can use my back yard


My Understanding When We Moved to Germantown

o right to bear arms
dims

RIGHT ARM
LOVE SEAT

This heat is
Hollow

short hours
magic,

car looks
like new


Moving from Germantown to the Nations

I noticed it smelling like death
between 6th and 7th the other
day. Putting keys in aluminum foil,
in tin cans or microwaves have
been suggested to keep this
from happening.

metro police
it looks like a mobile
Command unit are on the scene
area is roped off and I believe

in a 1950’s Blonde Coffee Table
Cause crime seems to be getting worse
but a Great Escape on Charlotte
Id start with Great Escape.

this is a photo of my meat and three
we are all about melting in the house


—Keegan Cook Finberg

Friday, July 5, 2019

Mary Newell, 3 Piths


“Towards the Separation of Fine from Coarse,”
from the series Separations in the Silence,
image by Sue Burickson



3 Piths


In the pith of afterdays

snow-pocks

wind-scatter

lint-retrieval

doleful read-out

candor quaint

customs remembered in sketch

deflections                                           

without conviction

revived by plans for the yet-to-be

the present so hard to imagine


In the pith of a diamonded terroir
to dig illicit
trust-famine                                                      

cracked earthworks rust
gum-gucked walls ooze         
adobe crumbles
                                                               
angular shovels warp
the arms of the shovelers
tied

lips white from thirst
terse from unspeaking
tight-eyed                                                      
     
gleam relinquish
escape contortion
ash-crawl 


in the pith of wrack

ruin-ation

post-partum obsequies

still
born

afterbirth gory   grisly    gulp
run amuck

rumi-nation
jimmy up

crank open
the crack

fingers cross for
another run-through                            

laugh at ephemera, wear purple
bellow or         pray           

bridge the mirror
eyes rivet



—Mary Newell