g

 

paper boy

Fasting

There's a hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness.
We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox
is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and the belly are burning clean
with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and new energy makes you
run up the steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.
When you're full of food and drink, an ugly metal
statue sits where your spirit should. When you fast,
good habits gather like friends who want to help.
Fasting is Soloman's ring. Don't give it 
to some illusion and lose your power,
but even if you have, if you've lost all will and control
they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing
out of the ground, pennants flying above them.
A table descends to your tents.
Expect to see it, when you fast, this table
spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages. 

expose for the blacks

click to enlarge

at the circus

dead fish in virginia, august

a little bitin boiling fever

kensington

I had already landed in a parallel universe, with more archaic principles and values, one where actions and virtues were old style and judgmental things came falling out on their heads. A culture with outlaw women, super thugs, demon lovers and gospel truths, streets and valleys, rich peaty swamps with landowners and oilmen, Stagger Lees, Pretty Pollys and John Henrys--an invisible world that towered overhead with walls of gleaming corridors. It was all there and it was clear--ideal and god fearing-- but you had to go find it. It didn't come served on a paper plate. Folk music was a reality of a more brilliant dimension. It exceeded all human understanding and if it called out to you, you could disappear and be sucked into it. I felt right at home in this mythical realm made up not with individuals so much as archetypes, vividly drawn archetypes of humanity, metaphysical in shape, each rugged soul filled with natural knowing and inner wisdom. Each demanding a degree of respect. I could believe in the full spectrum of it and sing about it. It was so real, so more true to life than life itself. It was life magnified. Folk music was all I needed to exist. Trouble was, there wasn't enough of it. It was out of date, had no proper connection to the actualities, the trends of the time. It was a huge story but hard to come across. Once I'd slipped in beyond the fringes it was like my six string guitar became a crystal magic wand and I could move things like never before. I had no other cares or interests besides folk music. I scheduled my life around it. I had little in common with anyone not like minded.

the Jail House Tapes

the typewriter tape

He was an escape artist with a serious rule book called Freedom, a missionary mopping up at the back of the bowery breadline where Christ left off. He was no dreamer, but a real shape shifter. A natural.

elite

The actor could no longer be distinguished from his role.

xylene chemical transfers, charcoal, collage, poem bits

Work from spring 2011.