I told the painter, who had lived on a boat in England’s waterways, my idea for a poetry video about JFK’s widow in Dallas. I want to use a passage from my mother’s journal about tree shadows. She walked past a garage sale and picked up a book with pages blowing in the wind. It was Jacqueline Kennedy’s biography. She took it as a sign & told her ex-husband, a cinematographer, about my project. He traded time and expertise for my paintings & we worked on many projects, over many years.
I have been approaching an idea I am still approaching
I circle the idea again and again
for some reason I made this comparison of eyes.
Eyes are truly the window to the soul
The soul is truly a window to the eyes
The window is truly eyes upon the soul.
I think of the glazier in Cocteau’s poetry-film Orphee wandering in the underworld.
I have the VHS tape rewound & worn, rewound & worn.
I may watch Orphee again one day. It reminds me of somebody.
My very own figure of death no longer mine.
In this comparison:
Burl Ives: Actor ~ musician ~ crouching fire-starter, lonely hero, feet of clay, masculine subject-object, middle name Ivanhoe, dancing round the Maypole, related to composer Charles Ives. In the heart is the first principle.
Mona Lisa: Mystery-school perception, the sun-drenched alchemical Renaissance, feminine subject-object, diagram the ancient golden number, echoing feet, touch linen ~ hazelnut paste, envision the Milky Way. In the heart is the first principle.
President: The conceptual zero imagined in three-dimensions, museums collapse beneath clouds funnelling stones, candy cigarettes, a camoflauged animal-skin eye-patch, mythological gods stir in vengeful coughing slumber. Envision the absent first principle.
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