Oh the rocks and the thimble
The oasis and the bed
Oh the jacket and the roses.
All sweetly stood up the sea to me
Like blue cornflakes in a white bowl.
The girl said, “Watch this.”
I come from Spain, I said.
I was purchased at a fair.
She said, “None of us know.
“There was a house once
Of dazzling canopies
And halls like a keyboard.
“These the waves tore in pieces.”
(His old wound—
And all day: Robin Hood! Robin Hood!)
(John Ashbery, from Some Trees.)
Whose face is this
So stiff against the blue trees,
Lifted to the future
Because there is no end?
But that has faded
Like flowers, like the first days
Of good conduct. Visit
The strong man. Pinch him—
There is no end to his
Dislike, the accurate one.
(John Ashbery, from Some Trees.)
(From MoMA’s almost impossible to find Futurism exhibit. It’s in the basement of the education building.)
Books
Films
Exhibits
(John Waters, Children Who Smoke, 2009. 8 c-prints; each image: 5 × 7 inches; framed: 26 1/2 × 20 1/2 inches. Edition of 5. On view at “Rear Projection” at Marianne Boesky.)
Here in this city you don’t love
In which you’ve passed so many days
That counting makes you want to puke
Afraid of things unrecognized!
Afraid of everything you’ve seen!
Crossing the streets and then recrossing
The muddy ways, the ways of snow
Ways of the tongue-tied, sullen masks
Here in this city you don’t love
City you’ll never get out of
Because of all you still don’t know
Summerfuls of syllabic tasks
Dazed by your dead who died right here
Here in this city you don’t love
(Jacques Roubaud, p. 90 in The Form of the City Changes Faster, Alas, Than the Human Heart, trans. Keith & Rosmarie Waldrop.)