surrealism | poemimage

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

We begin the long march to ecstasy perfumed with oblivion & beads of sweat,

fight lions after binding ourselves back to back with a muscular vine,

& nearly drown during an eclipse.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

The comedy club requires fingerprints pressed to a screen,

same as the eyeglasses store.

We discover a boat within the boat we dig out of sediment.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

We mistake The Code of Hammurabi Avenue for Morse Code Boulevard

& I screw the wrong cap onto the tube of Crazy Glue.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

We discover criminal activity undertaken in broad daylight,

both admitted and denied, by officials with strange eyes,

in the slow drip of cryptic deceit.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

Your voice echoes like Artaud reciting history inside a hollow stone sphinx,

electric lights in the Department of Missing Persons flicker & darken.

Your name on the envelope blows into the wind like a rose petal.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

Newspapers breathlessly report the relationship of nothingness to nothingness,

& emergency measures forbid speaking while purchasing milk or cotton or soap.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

You journey to the asteroid dead in its tracks above a cornfield

& wash smoke out of your hair.

I juggle my shoes & drag a burlap bag of chicken bones

& broken pencils.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

A cluster of oracles attribute your obsession with mirrors to a butterfly

glowing (& menacing) with translucent wings emanating fiery heat.

The ocean heaves pulverized rubies ashore, fine as ash,

to wash & purify children of the mirror.

We learn to walk beneath a translucent sun.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

You kick burning tires down the street in an existential city.

We listen beneath the shaded archway, as hairline cracks develop,

as Hannibal requires his elephant-drivers, courtesans & spies

explain the subtle yet vivid green of pine needles.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

The fast food drive-thru employee ceremoniously hands you clove cigarettes,

chess pieces & thorns in a glass bowl instead of French fries.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

A washing machine shaking violently loosens bolts in the concrete floor.

Van Gogh cannot reach his face & tied to the bed he sobs.

Postage stamps & bathing beauties innocently beguile.

Floppy hats disguise civilizational collapse.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

During the siege of a walled city you discover your name on a secret list,

& the falling moon in a constellation of automobile headlamps signals

the beginning of the one true revolution.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

Nefertiti hypnotizes The Beatles,

a herd of llamas escape,

& blind tourists robbed at gunpoint refuse to laugh it off.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

They parade out the latest deadly cures,

the dancing nurses smash jars of green pickles,

& Mona Lisa announces to the world she is closing the curtain permanently.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

You report a rickshaw collision with angels & the police accuse you of mischief.

A work crew sent by unknown authorities to seal the sacred spring

develops amnesia,

& you have the same dream three times each night.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

A shaman anoints the tip of your nose with a white paste,

a figure behind a streaked glass windshield adjusts frequencies

aiming a device dead centre on a wasp nest,

& inside the mountain cavern after a day of climbing your stomach feels better.

¥ou call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

Ice cream tastes like karma,

death comes around wearing a fur coat with a giant collar of darker fur,

& everybody looks like Peter O’Toole having a panic attack.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

You continue to gaze at the Encyclopedia of Bare Feet Upon Grass

even as I warn you of dangers in Babylon.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

You write on the chalkboard while sitting on a camel & departing the oasis.

A waterspout of insects shoots up, fractal as stained glass,

escaping a bottomless chalk-lined chamber.

I pilot a butterfly.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

An avalanche of icicles disturbs the tiger’s sleep,

a junkyard dog wearing a suicide vest runs loose in the marshmallow factory,

& black parakeets swooping in dark staircases resemble inky typography.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

A devotee of the Forgotten World Religious Society tumbles bars of soap

into a growling & flashing volcano.

The guardian of the portal sends us on a wild goose chase,

& a painter specializing in ferns claims to be Heironymus Bosch reincarnated.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

The scientist wearing a stethascope & white coat nursing the anvil

with a baby bottle

repeats your name and assigns you a number.

Original image. Gouache & water-soluble graphite on paper, 2021.

Variations digitally created in Photoshop, 2024.

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Consider the Shadow-Rain of Guernica

In hanging gardens & multi-dimensional language,

in empathetic irrigation of the human-heart,

in roots shaped like geometrical echoes,

consider intention.

Consider a symmetrical sun, almond-yellow, radiating the sky

buoyant as a cloak reconfigured by the wind

& reconfiguring a composition: the human heart

unfolding like origami or a magician’s flower bouquet.

Roots drip amber-nectar-sundrops

disguising archeological diagrams of the human heart

with geometrical echoes.

Consider intentions.

Consider soil trailing tendrils as it climbs the clay wall.

Consider two-dimensional projections of Guernica (the painting)

hovering face down.

Consider negative space in the X-rays,

thin wires tightened floor to ceiling,

a cloud of static pressed flat.

Consider the shadow-rain of Guernica.

Consider the surface of mirrors.

Along the ruined street

a young Palestinian father in a backwards baseball cap

carries his child wrapped head to toe in white cloth

up to his waist in waters gushing from concrete pipes

smashed to rubble.

Two actors view Picasso’s Guernica convincingly & with one fork

share a sponge-like delicacy dribbled with chocolate on a gold-trimmed plate,

the edge of the tablecloth wet with dank water swirling, as they whisper

convincingly in dulcet tones & put a coin in the jukebox, suddenly aware

of the shadow-rain mirroring two worlds and one reality.

Yesterday, for the first time this summer, I saw

a grasshopper – perched on a drainpipe at a slight diagonal,

hyper-vigilant, his shadow deep green ash.

Consider a symmetrical sun, almond-yellow, radiating the sky

buoyant as a cloak reconfigured by the wind &

reconfiguring a composition: the human heart

unfolding like origami or a magician’s flower bouquet.

Roots drip amber-nectar-sundrops

disguising archeological diagrams of the human heart

with geometrical echoes.

Consider soil trailing tendrils as it climbs the clay wall.

Consider two-dimensional projections of Guernica (the painting)

hovering face down.

Consider negative space in the X-rays,

thin wires tightened floor to ceiling,

a cloud of static pressed flat.

Consider the shadow-rain of Guernica.

Consider the surface of mirrors.

Digital manipulations of linocut prints by S. McCabe

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falling & falling & falling & flying looks like falling

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The Pen & the Plan: @ 50% Complete

I am now 50% complete working on the B&W roll of 5′ X 33-35′ paper. When I complete this second roll of paper I will have a diptych. I considered a triptych but talked myself out of it.

Brushwork with inks & gouache + drawing with water-soluble graphite pencils create different blacks and different whites in contrast.

I repeat & develop two images that begin the first blue roll of paper. The moon-ish figure and the dna figure (below) & seen above.

https://poemimage.com/2023/05/01/druidica-blue-deja-vu-cave-art-for-the-new-psyche/

A fountain springs from ‘bird-human’s’ hand and at the same time is a swan’s neck.

Within the fountain or swan’s neck a series of images depict a beast ‘vomiting’ a seed which shoots into the earth (mound), takes root and rises.

The green bit of tape shows the 17′ mark. Animal shapes and double faces. A joker or fool. Figures in the mound. ‘Watery spray’ opening into what comes next…

Being 50% complete with this roll of paper equals being 50% through completing a triptych. The plan is for visual poetry on the third roll of paper. The challenge now, in completing the second roll of paper, is to move away from intricate detail.

The idea is to keep track of my hours (with the pen & the book) *after* each day’s effort.

I’ve organized (with high-tech paper clips) the rough sketches and ideas to complete the second roll of paper. I don’t know yet how I’ll use these ideas – deliberately composing or spontaneously expressing.

Previously in progress:

Beginning where I left off @ 25% with this face & beginning to elaborate.

Ceremonial crown inspired by the European deer-god idea Cernunnos. Antlers look branch-like as well.

Check out the previous work on this B&W roll of paper (and the blue roll of paper preceding it) @ https://poemimage.com/2024/01/25/the-pen-the-book-the-plan/

Building the figure & relationships between figures:

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November 22, 2023

Page 46

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.

From my book Meme-Noir (2019).

The video:

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September 16, 2023

Yes, it seems I have….

Yes, it seems I have interrupted doing my ‘to do’ list of what must be done. Yes, it seems I have started working on a new roll of Italian mid-weight paper using B&W media: both inks and gouache.

Fish-woman? Wise-woman? Shaman? Doesn’t feel like fibre-optics.

The main thing on my ‘to do’ list is the promotion (for purposes of exhibition or sale) of my 2022 work ‘Druidica’ (W35′ X H5′) also on a roll of mid-weight Italian paper. I have discussed this work in these pages: https://poemimage.com/2023/05/01/druidica-blue-deja-vu-cave-art-for-the-new-psyche/

This new B&W work takes me full circle, in a way, to when I was a young, self-taught, beginning artist working with a 01 fine-tip, refillable, Rapidograph pen. I laboured over intricate, intuitive work, often overnight – stippling and scratching away at the tiniest details – dark and surreal, somewhat psychedelic. I have expanded on how I work with B&W since (of course – one does expand). As the Grateful Dead sang, What a long strange trip it’s been…I sold offset prints of my ink drawings door to door to students in university residences and the infamous Rochdale College in Toronto. I still remember encounters from those long-ago days and still have many of those drawings.

That may be Boudica in among natural forms and abstracted Celtic motifs.

It requires a bit of finesse to juggle ink & gouache side by side. You integrate two mediums, in one image, hoping the unique properties of each medium stand out. Each approaches the other: from here or there, keeping its own edge, and relationship with water.

A physician ‘nurses’ an anvil with a baby bottle – a deliberately absurd image.

Although I began (Whoosh!) without any plan, this work immediately communicated a specific theme. Two themes actually, I will play them off against each other, intertwining them. One is a ‘reverse metaphor’ of sorts – highlighting an impossiblity.

And the other depicts a figure in mythical folklore (who existed historically). I will abridge her mission, into my overall theme of juxtaposing polarities within a dense, intricate ‘jungle of the psyche.’ I will reassign her, respectfully… Once again the ancient juxtaposes against the ‘now.’

I was surprised by the sense of ‘portent’ in the composition.

I have not corrected these iphone8 photos, taken under less than ideal conditions. I started to ‘adjust’ them in Photoshop and decided it was too time-consuming. Below we see an example of ‘drawing’ beside ‘painting.’

A ‘star’ within the breast of the bird breathing ‘fire.’

Just like with my ‘long blue painting’ I am working on the floor.

Green tape (not very sticky) helped me divide sections for photography.

I must remember to get those soft knee-pads for gardening to help with working on the floor.

Often in my poemimage postings I post the first draft of a poem and spend days editing the material. However, what I am saying here is pretty much just ‘black and white’ facts (excuse the pun).

Face to face with a bird breathing fire…

I may have ‘adjusted’ or ‘corrected’ this image in Photoshop.

With ink I am both drawing and using a looser, painterly style, with wash, dripping, splattering, and expressiveness, which can be rather unforgiving. The gouache, although paint itself, is used more deliberately, adding depth, and solving problems.

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September 7, 2023

Hey Joe! Where You Goin’ With That Piccolo in Your Hand?

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?

I’m goin’ where evidence dis-in-te-grates – explodin’ in my hand,

volcanic spittle twistin’ in heat, beige bone cup crackin’ in heat,

cave art scratched into my palm, my baby’s firebird-voice warblin’

gold as syrup, thrashin’ on fiery veined-wings, tin boomerangs wobble,

tippin’ X-rayed & shiverin’ – flash-fuse lightnin’ strikin’ cobblestones

& discarded cigarettes, even my bus ticket, hairline cracks in bone, in tar,

in vermillion – ground cinnebar – pigment packed in jars, coolin’ in red clay

shadows durin’ the Renaissance, hairline crackin’ fractal flowers on lacquer,

river-lines on a map, in masterworks, into Assumption of the Virgin by Titian,

& unmentioned others, with fadin’ of time, a tourist bus pulls off sputterin,’

single-point perspective dis-in-te-grates – unseen stick scratchin’ my hand.

I pirouette my solitary shadow across Palazzo Pirro built within

sixteenth century Rome, my shadow layering, a palimpsest, above

cobblestones and a book of matches.

I light one candle divining a reality (quiet: like a stalking panther),

and then brightly shine, playing a piccolo-infused, Super 8 movie theme.

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?

I’m goin’ to journey – a refugee, I witness the obsidian glyphs, comin’ down like

a long black glove – aimin’ into the heart of me,

she calls me her sweet hero revolution,

a wooden gate swingin’ open,

and she tastes like nocino…

We pirouette our shadows across Palazzo Pirro built within

sixteenth century Rome, our shadows layering, like a palimpsest, sprigs of

speckled weeds growing among the cobblestones.

We light one candle divining a reality (double-sided: like a magician’s trick),

and then brightly shine, playing a Super 8 movie theme (her firebird voice

disinfecting fountains).

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?

I’m goin’ to journey – a refugee, I witness the obsidian glyphs, sparklin’

like the aurora borealis, above the path leadin’ down to the river –

her firebird voice nourishes, dark as syrup, aimin’ into the heart of me.

I inhale ancient images in Pirro Ligorio’s engraving:

Image of the Ancient City Rome.

I light one candle divining a reality (earthy: like a black walnut),

and then brightly shine, playing a Super 8 movie theme – the piccolo

a rowboat rocking beneath my baby’s firebird voice.

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?

I’m goin’ to journey – a refugee, I witness the obsidian glyphs, comin’

down like a long black glove – aimin’ into the heart of me,

she calls me her sweet hero revolution,

a wooden gate swingin’ open,

and she tastes like nocino…

We inhale ancient images in Pirro Ligorio’s engraving:

Image of the Ancient City Rome.

We light one candle divining a reality (weaponized: like a cell phone),

and then brightly shine, playing a Super 8 movie theme – starring

gods who play at sport.

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?

I’m goin’ to journey – a refugee, I witness the obsidian glyphs, sparklin’

like the aurora borealis, above the wall protectin’ us from invaders –

her firebird voice beckons, dark as syrup, aimin’ into the heart of me.

I cup my ears, lean into a raucus carnival of street theatre,

and reiterate childhood ~ reimagining Pierrot in commedia dell’arte.

I light one candle divining a reality (dangerous: like a darkened highway),

and then brightly shine, playing a Super 8 movie

theme – gods who play at sport loom like the Chrysler Building,

rising like angels on the head of a pin.

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?

I’m goin’ to journey – a refugee, I witness the obsidian glyphs, comin’

down like a long black glove – aimin’ into the heart of me,

she calls me her sweet hero revolution,

a wooden gate swingin’ open,

and she tastes like nocino…

We cup our ears, lean into a raucus carnival of street theatre,

and reiterate childhood ~ reimagining Pierrot in commedia dell’arte.

We light one candle divining a reality (bolted down: like a Faraday cage),

and then brightly shine, playing a Super 8 movie theme – my piccolo a

rowboat, her firebird voice clairvoyant in mysteries of flesh and blood.

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?

I’m goin’ to journey – a refugee, I witness the obsidian glyphs,

comin’ down like a long black glove – aimin’ into the heart of me.

Her firebird voice dark as syrup, pale as flutterin’ cherry blossoms,

passin’ like a shadow across the public square, deepenin’

worn ballustrades in darkest chiaroscuro, spreadin’ like black-moss jam,

spreadin’ upon the panther carved in white granite, rollin’ ancient wheels

down hallways of the gods, rockin’ me like a rowboat, rockin’ me into

confusion, perfumin’ rivers and clay, and plants receivin’

moonlight, and trees in silhouette, and evaporatin’ mist, and constellations

deep as ice disappearin’ at breakneck speed, disappearin’ into amber

like a prehistoric gnat, a grasshopper wing, a spine, the scent of smoke,

starlight embedded in black moss arcin’ high above the cave, torchlight

flickerin’ ancestors to the wall ecstatic, copper-plated figurines, hewed

magnetic wood, chantin’ in shrouded limestone, silvery echoes quiver:

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that

Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with

Hey Joe! Where you goin’

Hey Joe! Where you

Hey Joe! Where

Hey Joe!

Hey

A 1493 woodcut of the university town of Bologna, where Copernicus studied law.

I found this anonymous woodcut online some time ago and created a series of digital images blending it with a small & golden, Incan figure (a god perhaps). I decided to only use one of those images for this posting. I cannot remember which high school, or year, the high school yearbook photo of the cheerleader and basketball players came from but here they are, in their youth, featured in a new variant of the classic Hey Joe! now situated in Rome, or perhaps outside of time. I lifted the figure in blue from a series of images in progress about a bus driver (not sure I’ll ever get back to it). I take credit for my own digital creative work and conceptual imagination. I don’t claim copyright over original source material in my (not for profit) re-contextualizing and art-making.

And of course the original song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Joe

Special thank you to Joe Kelly who encouraged the vernacular in abbreviations such as goin’ instead of going. I used that whenever ‘Joe’ of ‘Hey Joe’ was asked the question.

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