Nearer the end than the beginning in my ‘wordless poem’ book Nevermore Together, the protagonist (who is nameless, well because…) escapes from a prison. The floor cracks – opening to a tunnel. A tunnel that whooshes him a very long and winding distance, sort of a ‘birth canal’ or portal. But he doesn’t reappear as a newborn. Perhaps, though, he engages the world in a ‘newly born’ fashion.
I meet an old friend for coffee and cake
we discuss the symmetry of
consequence, the coincidence of
symmetry.
After we stand on the corner
I visit two bookstores
near one another in The Annex,
mostly second-hand
books I will thumb through
a hundred times (knock on wood)
finding inspiration
sifting subconscious & mythological elements
a chapter here, chapter there
traipsing the curvilinear imagination.
Birds fly low magnetized by subterranean quartz
wings whoosh, swooshing
miraculously, above the roar of wind,
I hear their soft instruction.
A young person, in motion a river,
photographs the books
over my shoulder.
Humming a tune
I contemplate pages
on the subway train.
Or so it seems, the way she steadies her phone
visible out the corner of my eye –
my station approaches.
I said this image is four, maybe, or five-thousand years old
she said I saw the books.
She said something, maybe, what
she read or might be reading.
Maybe she mentioned Byzantium.
I understood barely anything almost nothing,
with her speaking through a mask,
the subterranean ambient noise,
additional my normal hearing trouble.
She repeats a word, I tilt my head
like a bird
darting
the door embellished with golden mosaic tiles,
sliding closes in my face.
A vast dimension
composed of light-years
descends upon me.
The sound of her mystery words
accentuates her aura
like a river in motion.
I repeat rhyming words
the consequence of symmetry
the symmetry of coincidence.
Thank you, she said.
I dart for the door again
climbing tiled stairs
beneath vast archways
tasting cake.
Birds swoop above & below a quartz-river
flowing from the sun.
The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages: Language Theory, Mythology and Fiction by
Jesse M. Gellrich –
Sun, Moon and Standing Stones by John Edwin Wood –
Inside the Neolithic Mind by David Lewis-Williams & David Pearce –
A Search for Cave and Canyon Art: Voices From the Stone Age by Douglas Mazonowicz – (signed by the author)
My large painting (& drawing) on a roll of Fabriano paper has turned the corner.
Still down on the floor like a turtle. Maybe the turtle is giving birth.
I’m playing with the title:
Druidica.
Druidica Blue.
Druidica Blue: Deja Vu.
Druidica Vu: Deja Vu (Cave Art for the New Psyche).
I created these three GIFs before my Photoshop 5 program became unworkable. A face in Art History seems out of context yet provides commentary, a touchstone. I remind myself, in various ways, of this day when the carnival came to town. A long car driving through shadows into the sun of art history.
I walked past the row houses where I spent my childhood, stepping over syringes, watching for wild dogs, hearing hammering & avoiding ladders leaned against altars in late-afternoon shadow. The wind blew a torn page to my feet: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Without understanding why, I put the folded paper in my jacket pocket. A touchstone.
To create angels
Is to slice pie and name wedges:
difficult angles of light preserved in heart’s jelly
teenaged crushes trapped diagonally
undirected love felt in the presence of music
infatuation without object
movement in the skull
turtles waking in the mind’s mud
grape cluster the past becomes if artfully remembered
not images
but the script under them
negative space written in spelling errors
negligence that amends the soul
a family of perspectives driving a cumulative death
into the oncoming traffic
whole note in a black triangle on a blue background
disappearances denting the air
weather not noticed by the self absorbed
ignited visions
kissed ashes
barrel in the cellar
parallel fermentation of grape juice and darkness
the strong red taste of every humanizing event
stolen hour at the church dance
when a hard father’s daughter meets the one
who steals her from home
mines and quarries dug with the eyes
dream’s mailman
slipping letters through the slot
the white surrounding this
word
Luciano Iacobelli is a Toronto poet, publisher and editor. From 2007 to 2019 he was involved with Quattro books as both publisher and editor. He still runs a micropress entitled Lyricalmyrical press, specializing in hand made poetry chapbooks. As an author, he has published 6 full length books of poetry, his most recent book DOLOR MIDNIGHT was published in 2018 and deals with the subject of gambling. His next book, NOCTOGRAMS is due to be published in the fall of 2020 and deals with the subject of night and transformation.
Prologue begins THE ANGEL NOTEBOOK (Seraphim Editions, 2007)
In her mirror
She feels illumined by an accelerating process
Initiated by the 20th Century.
A darkening fog.
Klee-song,
Cocteau,
de Chirico,
Arise from her in swirling, serpentine eddies. A ventriloquist.
She unties a boat on the shore. The underground river.
Languages of illumining clarity speed into each other like blood in water,
As vast and translucent as the Northern Lights.
& For reasons both utilitarian and mythopoeic
The face in the mirror anticipates leaping.
& Distance swimming through shadow-lands,
Beneath the precipice of shallow, atomic time,
Within and without darkened chambers & coincidentally
Light reflecting upon ancient vials.
& Our spines an unbroken chain of receptor cauldrons.
& Her gift. The mirror.
Paul Klee catalogue (1951), Giorgio de Chirico painting ‘Song of Love’ (1914), photographic still from Jean Cocteau’s ‘Orphee’ (1950), pictured: Jean Marais and Maria Casarès
0:00 – 0:56
0:56 – 1:12
1:12 – 2:10
2:10 – 3:06
3:06 – 4:02
4:02 – 4:58
4:58 – 5:54
5:54 – 6:50
6:50 – 7:46
7:46 – 8:23
You can silently enjoy
the Beatle’s sound collage
Revolution 9
by following the time code
between images
above
(a Dada/Fluxus action)
or
this link
to
the full
eight minutes +
of inspired mayhem
on their White Album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJeqOoc4HmI
Amazingly
within five years
The Beatles traveled artistically
and sonically
from I Want to Hold Your Hand
to
Dada / surreal poetry
and a psychedelia infused with literary and cinematic
overtones.
As 2014 begins
you may find yourself
beginning or ending
travel
into or out of
cyclical spheres.
Like
a comet.
Like
comet #9.
The same film with subtitles:
In 2009 I created My Story Is Not My Own, a metaphysical & surreal film poem concerning the Kennedy assassination. My statement concerning this project is beneath the video on the YouTube page.
On the death-dealing slope, the traveler makes use
Of the favor of day, the slippery frost, no small stones,
And eyes blue with love he discovers his season
Beringed on all fingers with stars.
On the beach the sea has relinquished its ears
And the sand digs the spot for a beautiful crime.
Torture is harder for hangmen than victims
Bullets are tears and daggers are signs.
Capital of Pain, Black Widow Press, 2006
translated by Mary Ann Caws, Patricia Terry, Nancy Kline
originally published 1926.
I was apprehensive about applying my images to a poem about Paul Klee. Klee is one of my favourite artists for many reasons. He used line masterfully. His sense of colour and texture was both magical and visceral. He was intellectual as well as full of child-like wonder. He experimented imaginatively while rigorously creating an expanding body of work. This poem by Eluard is like a prism capturing various realities & dimensions one might encounter in Klee’s art. I wanted to depict the sensibility & feel of the poem but I wasn’t sure how I felt about making images about somebody who made images. And I didn’t want to copy Klee in any sort of obvious manner. I shared this concern with Nancy Kline, the translator of this poem & many of the poems in Capital of Pain. Nancy suggested that one visual artist interpreting another might be an worthwhile experience yielding interesting results. And with this encouragement in mind I worked on composing images that hopefully come near the boundaries of ‘Klee-ism.’
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