Monday, January 16, 2017

Kit Kelen - for ataraxia #4 - practice of a disappearance


practice of a disappearance


among these words my friends have thrown
I scratch a muddy paw
to overtake the sun

hide clouds
and peekaboo
loose weave of mind
jazz is such a vanishing
fall through

I hear the scratching at the wall
the cat keeps coming in
annoying and it wishes fed
if it were Schrödinger's maybe it wouldn't
maybe it would

if your words are mine
then where is it that I have gone?
if I said where
would you be there?

come and gone
so I set out
through an open door

name of the absence is yesterday

and now
the afternoon doesn't end
it's still going
with stars downstream the sky has strewn

every word has its shadow to lift
every breath is a secret
day is ash
last night's lost dreams are set to burn 




 

5 comments:

  1. this is one pretty well as is from early days on 366

    ... I find myself sorting through these, wondering where they're going to fit...
    and often I'm not quite convinced by the poem, especially in terms of destination, and yet I'm equally loath to alter it because I feel it was right for what it was...
    which kind of begs a question as to whether it's right for where it's going...

    but I'm also loath to toss things because I worry that removing what might seem like outriders on the way through could have the effect of unnecessarily limiting the range/scope of the collection one is building

    I mean to say I've already limited each one a fair bit simply by deciding to at last start with a long list of possible destinations ... so I feel like keeping some things on life support for longer, simply because I don't know where they might end up

    and I do this knowing that there's a danger of stalling one's editing process by simply not being decisive enough in the matter of slaughtering the infants

    ... are other people in this kind of quandary, or is it only me?

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  2. I think what you describe might be seen as a hurdle, but, mainly, I would assert it is the privilege of abundance Kit! And in its own way, it fits perfectly well Schrödinger’s issue which tells us that measuring, from a superposition of equally possible states, creates an observed “stable”state (and yes either dead or alive, absent or present etc) … I love the poem the way it is and for what it is, I would keep it! And to answer your question, I'm often in trouble when it comes to cuts, collection building etc ... I'm much more of an improvisor rather than an architect!

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  3. I like this piece as it is, it has so much going for it.
    Regarding the quandary... yep. Oh yes my familiar quandary too (albeit smaller in scale).
    Quick words below are no manifesto but set-off familiar lights.

    The notion everything has its perfect perfection or complete completeness is certainly tricky art business.
    The dilemma of What to keep / what to keep intact? - if only as pure lessons of 'what seemed once truth..' etc / What to slaughter (decisively or otherwise)?
    "Keep everything" Picasso said, and he did or at least others did for him. He kept old Gitanes, his old clothes, newspapers, all his earlier paintings under (and in part) others that he submerged in others again; they spoke to and of each other, he even seemed to keep wives going this way.

    Back to editing per say this may sound a tad simplistic ...
    my own humble experience that mostly works, is to begin with categorising, and then form series or suites and styles and then see one proceeding or following another and keeping (generally) only one of this type (the best) and store the rest (2nd's, 3rds etc) for another unfolding or airing.
    Singularly each work is a true one-off entity so integrity prevails and actually these develop even more by seeing each as preceding or following another.
    In this laid out way, each piece could reveal its 'link', if not then one could subtlety and creatively 'add the link'.

    From within the galaxy of an artists own work (and mind) the linear seems unrealistic yet eventually all his/her artworks will be seen this way; on a wall, in book, in a tube or screen or on the ground, chapter, one chapter two etc...
    I know alternate devices and methods exist to challenge and diversify this linear practice – think tattooing abstract expressionism etc...

    I intuitively think this linear processing quite un-natural and liken it to just 'shuffling the deck' as in what curators (can I say that?) but it does help me understand, value and invest in the process and the appreciate the point of it.

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  4. I think it's all much more rhizomic than linear or arboreal ... something like a submerged web
    it being the process
    but what of what to publish?
    what to offer?
    preserve everything is how I've largely lived
    and now I have my own pyramid
    and it's v full
    the age of re-priming begins

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  5. Yes submerged ... as you say
    I imagine vast digital vaults
    rhizomic
    all those files
    Yours likely an industry
    still a formula to tend the garden, weed and prune
    would uncover gems waiting to link to suites, rows etc.
    The pyramid thing can be a menace, if left vertical and as one structure.
    keep on going, you must

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