Poetry and Paintings

Yves Tanguy

Elizaveta Porodina

It has long been my contention that jackals,
unlike other denizens of the epistemic forest, are able to predict
the future of metabolizing some kind of parasite that grows on other people's
children and devours them. The eyes are a profound cobalt blue, accepting
of moral dilemmas and sprouting proverbs
slowly, like crystals,
but no, not innocent,

- John Ashbery, from Flow Chart

Kent Williams

Lee Price

Approach

magic step of unfinished nights
nights gulped down in haste bitter drinks gulped down in haste
nights buried under the muddy mat of our slow passions
barren dreams in far looks of pecking crows

soiled sodden night rags we have built
within each of us a coloured tower so lofty
that the view is no longer blocked beyond mountains and waters
that the sky no longer turns away from our star nets
that the clouds lie down at our feet like hunting dogs
and we can stare into the sun until oblivion

and yet my peace only finds its reason
in the nest of your arms the night tide
after the burst of squalling storms stream down death

it's the loose body of an earthly suit of armour
that drops away from the necklace of our dreams oblivion

- Tristan Tzara, translated by Lee Harwood

Andrea Kowch

Eric Lacombe

Then when somebody comes to ask you if you have freshened up, or would like to,
the whole freight train of associations is set in motion, lumbers gracelessly
along the tracks, and it isn't so much as if you had made up your mind,
       indeed
had done so quite some time ago, thank you, but as if it's all off
and running: the race to the pageant, stiff competition among the ushers,
the stagehands. And now I want it to be the way
it was.

-John Ashbery, from Flow Chart

Jo Racttliffe

Dream Song 14

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.   

After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,   

we ourselves flash and yearn,

and moreover my mother told me as a boy   

(repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored   

means you have no

Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no   

inner resources, because I am heavy bored.

Peoples bore me,

literature bores me, especially great literature,   

Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes   

as bad as achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.   

And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag   

and somehow a dog

has taken itself & its tail considerably away

into mountains or sea or sky, leaving            

behind: me, wag.

- John Berryman, from The Dream Songs

Wolfgang Lett Kunst

Dan Witz

Wolfgang Lett Kunst

Sonnet 34

Time flies by like a great whale
And I find my hand grows stale at the throttle
Of my many faceted and fake appearance
Who bucks and spouts by detour under the sheets
Hollow portals of solid appearance
Movies are poems, the holy bible, a great mother to us
People go by in the fragrant day
Accelerate softly my blood
But blood is still blood and tall as a mountain blood
Behind me green rubber grows, feet walk
In wet water, and dusty heads grow wide
Padré, father, or fat old man, as you will,
I am afraid to succeed, afraid to fail,
Tell me now, again, who I am


- Ted Berrigan

Albulena Panduri

Joseph Cornell

This Room

The room I entered was a dream of this room.

Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine.

The oval portrait

of a dog was me at an early age.

Something shimmers, something is hushed up.

We had macaroni for lunch every day

except Sunday, when a small quail was induced

to be served to us. Why do I tell you these things?

You are not even here.

- John Ashbery, Your Name Here

Kent Williams

Brendan Monroe