The Art Job
“I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance.” ~ Sojourner Truth
That which is invisible
Because of its nature
As unreflective of light
And unresponsive to pressure
Like scores, and programs and instructions for instance
Like the Fifth Symphony, or the Dharma,
or any story before it’s told
or gods of all sorts;
All of those things or non-things
All of those potentials
Undetectable and immeasurable
Without form or substance
Vastly outnumber what appears to be.
The artist’s job,
He said with arrogance
Is to make a representation,
Speaking in metaphors,
Of what is invisible.
Not to make shit up.
It Doesn’t Mean Anything
It is often said that a good photograph tells a story.
Maybe so, but a great photograph doesn’t.
It is a single sound, a word, if you must think of it that way.
A message without meaning.
Speechless and silent, it stays put
As the light hit the sensor.
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In the 21st century
Any monkey can make art.
I’m trying to make a decent photograph.
Leica didn’t acknowledge the existence of electricity until 1985. Images are made with photons, not electrons.
In the future, after the age of electricity, we will do all our work with light, and everything will be as it appears.
We shall be as gods.
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The Momentum of History
Mass in motion,
Matter through space
It is non-fiction
With weight and inertia.
A boulder rolling
Downhill in time
Flattens out patterns of data
Like craters on the moon.
In ink of crushed bones and feathers
Innumerable body parts
Rusted machines and blown out buildings
What we call a story
Is pressed onto pages
As images.
The fiction we conjure
From marks left by rocks in time
This is what we tell to our children.
History has momentum
Because it is made
Of matter in motion.
And it doesn’t matter, really
What the TV says.
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Been There, Done That, Will Do It Again.
Last night we were sitting under a canopy
At a large banquet table
A gathering
Attended by servants
Who brought fine wines and waters
And plate after plate of exquisite food.
Delicate beef, fish and octopus.
As in Da Vinci’s Last Supper
The master sat in the center
And we craned our necks
To catch some tidbit from his lips
That would open our minds
So we could be like him.
Generous and kind,
Magnanimous and wise.
Suddenly the centuries condensed
And the time space collapsed.
I remembered the event in every past epoch.
In this same place, at this same table,
Under this same tent.
The same discussion of the esoteric way.
“Four hundred years ago” I said, “Shakespeare died.”
“We’ve done this many times.”
There was the funeral scene in Satyricon
When they eat the dead poet.
The body of Christ, The body of Christ.
“I feel guilty when I eat octopus” said the poet next to me.
“The question is, ‘how guilty?'” I said.
“Not guilty enough” came the obvious answer
As the knife cut through the tentacle.
“Better a moment of nausea
For a lifetime of wealth.” Fellini said.
We’ve done this many times.
We’ll do it again.
* image of Lazaro Godoy
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Your art makes my skin crawl.
“It is obscene to write poetry
After the holocaust.”
Adorno.
To live in the shadow of genocide
And scribble then, with some slight-of-hand,
Something or other entertaining;
It is a pornography of privilege.
The privilege of those who,
Having survived so far with their bones intact,
Somehow feel that their skin will not melt.
It is obscene, this high art
In this ecocide.
To live in a refuge of concrete and tar
With art as decor,
With music as spectacle
With poetry as lifestyle.
The only thing that is important is your sacrifice.
Florida Bay is silent as a graveyard.
The Indian River Lagoon
Is a lagoon of corpses.
The skin of dead fish
Bulldozed into dumpsters like My Lai
Is not much different than yours.
“A butterfly sucking
On the carcass of a dead bird.
In the center of a flower
Under a deep blue sky
It’s a mistake to think you’re special.”
Giorno.
The only thing that works is your sacrifice.
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Almost everything is invisible
No,
A photograph does not tell a story
At its best
If it’s any good
It’s a single line
One visible verse
The simpler the better
That makes you alert
To all the other
Invisible verses
In an epic poem
Ringing
All around you.
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