Tag: prose

Of Arthur Rimbaud

These appetites: Shapes, 
Run fingers 
       through dimension;
And Rimbaud’s regret? 

To sprawl oneself bare 
On dynamic growth, youth did not have 
Depth, 
Age grows too brittle and arthritic

There are worse things than inexperience!

The measure is what one has not –yet what 
Was charming of African earth? 
-Consistency in the predator’s gaze
-A delicate (simple) joy bending to the sun

Libertineflesh sheathed its poet’s death;
With no remorse in the seasons’ passage 
This dead poet’s footnotes trailed 
To find art living as concubine

Short Story Collection – Moods in Tragic Comedy

I was working on short stories from January – April of 2019. I’ve now compiled them in an Ebook. It’s near terrifying how personal, revealing, the process of writing can be; and all sourcing without planning or prior thought – a sequence of events created, and by some natural force, linked in a whole both coherent and meaningful.

The story is a testament; it’s always been, and not just for me. And for what, I don’t know, or I don’t want to know. That’s likely why I’m attracted to writing fiction: to play in the mystery.

1. Inertia
A painter struggling with authenticity and the influence of others tries to start a new life in a city under political unrest. Loosely based on the October Crisis in Québec.

2. Darwin’s Curse
A scientist cataloguing wildlife on a tropical island must reconcile science and faith after his wife miscarries from a genetic defect.

3. The Trial of Davey & Lon
Two friends break into a cemetery to rob a precious necklace from the body of someone very famous.

4. We, Among Fools
Alternate historical fiction on the bizarre relationship between King Henry the 8th and his court jester William Sommers.

5. White Lilacs
In the aftermath of a civil war a husband returns home thinking his wife dead, yet there’s something happening to him that he can’t and isn’t willing to explain.

Artwork: Max Beckmann (1884 – 1950)
Left – Departure – 1935
Right – The Actors – 1942

The engagement with art and beauty

What are we looking for when we view art? 

If a child were in a gallery and two walls were covered by paintings. One side has the works of Rothko, Mitchell, Miró. The other Eyck, Veronese, Rembrandt.
Which side would they be attracted to?  

The engagement to art results the valuation. 
Each genre requires its own engagement, which can be regarded as a mode of experience. And experience is unbearably rich. 

What I find enjoyable in abstract paintings is meaninglessness. I hope the work tells me nothing; I want free-quality of colour and shape; aesthetics without reference. 
But I know the beauty of a Rembrandt is not in Rembrandt. It is in the source- the viewing person. The Rembrandt is a stimulus which evokes. Proof: many are indifferent to paintings. 

Now think of nature. It has a similar engagement-requirement. 

"Nature...is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest."
- Baudelaire 

One can extract aesthetic sense from a mountain, a beach, a Pollock, while another cannot and will not because they're not able to affirm, or do not even have, a secret to play with. 

Imagine you could form one sentence to communicate the reality of beauty experienced.

“That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts...”
- Nietzsche 

And why do people buy millions worth of paint hazardly splattered on a canvas? 
It's an investment like real estate. Don't think too much of it. 

   




        


Top
Mark Rothko - Blue, Orange, Red - 1961 
Joan Mitchell - City Landscape - 1955
Joan Miró - Ciphers and Constellations in Love with a Woman - 1941

Bottom
Jan van Eyck - Madonna at the Fountain- 1439
Paolo Veronese - The Wedding at Cana - 1563
Rembrandt van Rijn - The Storm on The Sea of Galilee - 1633

sometimes

sometimes i get stuck in my head.

the green of the grass outside sometimes gets stuck in my vision.
the motion blur in the car sometimes is not blurred enough.
the music in the bar gets into my veins and it’s not loud enough, sometimes.

i don’t want to keep sinking into the same old feelings,
i like the new, like changing old clothes,

it takes time for me to realize i’m not my feelings

anyway,

There is a need to make sense of experience through a language that is more authentic.

Language sets a standard to define our non-standard selves.

If you analyze yourself deeper, burrowing down to the centre (whatever that is),
the common words, symbols
become disingenuous means to express what it is found;

Convenient placeholders- ready made constructions for mass use.

Poetry is created from an inward movement
orbited to one mind
playfully engaged
in the struggle of re-definition.

decisions made between couples

Like a scene of a crime,
you come back to find what you missed
the first time.

It was too much to take in then;
the shock: too sincere;
so you go back,
and go again;
the memorable dries on wallpaper,
the senses clear
from a cloud of baking soda;

and each step backwards demands more of what was missed
until mystery writes another
same story

and
case solved;

though,

the stain of time…

Everyone looks down sooner or later to smile.

Blushing at a random cool breeze,
or reminded of something
long thought forgotten,

or feeling
something
long thought abandoned.

For a moment, a stranger’s eyes roam sporadic across a busy room,

and land into mine.

The brief capture of a life,
that entrapment of time,
of memory,

concentrated in gaze.

Sometimes, I look down smiling as well.