Up here on the first floor
light builds across a surface
in swathes or shavings num
bers words and what is there
faintly showing
almost covered up is the life
of a city the way we live
through wrapped identities
I wait where there are no boundaries
in a place about another place
you almost know or knew
the oddly familiar radio chat
between jazz tracks is getting odder
the voice hip and subterranean
and two paintings that face each other on the walls
trying to work out the walls
of black sugar paper and masking tape
stuck at so many odd angles
it reminds me of the day I first tried
to read the Observer
now I the observer
consult these new equivocal maps
and begin to connect with
neighbourhoods snowed over
seen from the air
I feel safe – perhaps
The 44 panel picture downstairs May Heaven Protect
You from Dangers and Assassins is working
maps of a city/ city of maps
with gone street names… I envisage a force of nature
trees disappearing in the snow-night’s chiaroscuro
gazebos folded leaning flat –
or nothing really so much as
roads/ criss-crossing into some place you know
a balloon – as in the first humans airborne –
floats down the district called Josephine’s Shoulders
I wonder whether I should follow? / could I/
descending through air to find my domain
explore down orange roads
under five muted
bare light bulbs in the ceiling
I cast no shadow
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Josephine’s Shoulders: part of a multimedia installation by Mark Bradford. May Heaven Preserve You from Dangers and Assassins: painting by Mark Bradford. Exhibition was entitled The Pistol that Whistles
1 comments:
Yes, that evokes The White Cube. The poem seems to unite many of your themes, not least London "The way we live through wrapped identies," sums up much. I haven't seen the exhibition but the spirit of it comes across on rereading.
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