My Virginial Day

Official residency (installation?) began today. It was a great luxury to be able to play with words all day in a public place. It almost felt like legalised indecent exposure. The cafe was quiet: the gallery was between exhibits, which created a subdued but expectant vibe. It was useful creatively, since I am also beginning, so shall have a fresh exhibit next week to play with.

Had a Nice chat with Robert about David Lerner and Rimbaud, and the general decline of the Academy into academy Inc.

Here's some work to come out of today though.

empty café

Voices of the empty café echo, with
laughing, downy-gentle, the present punctuation.
Dreamy,
the sun has caught the silver surface sleepy:
burns a cold hard shaving rash.
And there above reception, simply heads
that bob and bounce between the melody of
automatic doors and the beat of
automatic air.

Time is always liquid at the start,
tipping in the tinkling of long neck glasses
while I wait for coffee
the chalk boards whisper coloured words
of the coming day:

chicken and sweet corn soup

and I believe in it like God would on the seventh day.

The girls behind the counter
are photographs in black and white,
the starkest type,
not sepia, not here,
in the empty openness of Early.

Then the laughs get rough, competing
with each other, wrestling, rising,
pushing in the chest like the Demons in the ruck, but:
the smell of coffee beans are referees
from Arabican refugees

each flat black hand, with salt and pepper,
sweaty, the anticipated letter,

then, the number '3', all upside-downed
always smooth, an' wrongly round:

it must be true, but
here, before the whistle, one can never
really be so sure.


empty gallery

Where there was floor, there is now stone,
With pips an' paps o'criss-crossed fads and fixes
in laceration red.
But cryptic, crafty words,
an 'Ex' and intercoursing lines
spit-spattered,
outlines of ideas caught up in craft,
struggling, breathing,
still bleeding but alive,
willing on the

living

deadly

Art.

The walls are bones, still lit for end results
and blanker than the whitest page I've never seen
as if (and only if!) some cyclonic storm
had torn the walls down flat
and they still stand.

Rolled up, red bodies, casualties so casual against the walls
And men in overalls and baseball caps kick them about,
And roll them out
and point and stare

And wait and leave
And then return.
And point again.
And kick.

Such lazy murder going on…

The talking heads that peak around the 'puter screens
Are full of information sweeter than the counter cookies.

Next week, the resurrection:

for now, the tomb is full.