So
today we’ll mark the anniversary,
affirm
it to affirm ourselves, as consequences
less
inconsequential or bitter, uncurdle our blood,
redemption
with the frosting of pink hope.
And
of course a ceasefire and solicitude observed,
a
pause for the children! today. The of courses of twenty years
slicing
through, like yets and no longers,
criss-crossing,
so easily, and in such symmetry.
and
they’ll cut the Madeira cake my sister’s baked them,
and
we’ll clap, and laugh, and then I’ll wipe away
the
careless crumbs as they spill off the plate,
onto
the tablecloth of flowered chintz.
There,
in two neat black frames on the bedside table,
next
to the old brass clock, my grandparents gaze
out
at a world that leaves them quite unable
to
reach through sepia and forgotten days;
holding
them there, as if waiting to be looked at
through
the clear glass reflecting the light’s glare;
objects
of a vague attention that
I
dust and then set down again with care.
In
this first one now, my grandfather’s smile
meets
the camera with a practiced ease;
and
his steel-rimmed eyes, for this little while,
seem
to have lost their iced severities:
Nineteen
fifty – then aged fifty-four,
he
ruled like a despot over his little clan
and
silent wife – but here appears no more
than
a dark shervani on a pale, mild man.
He
died the next year. But my grandmother, here
in
this frame, reached an age he never could:
Seventy
years old, and I think the year
was
seventy-three. And for us, she had stood
a
portrait of that strength that comes with care.
Although
this photograph shows her as quite
uneasy,
and the older of the pair;
An
old unsmiling woman, wearing white.
I
have that snapshot in my album still –
That
pale blue sky, which doesn’t really tell
How
hot it was and how you fell quite ill:
You
held a book, and smiled hard to look well.
I
wasn’t posing then, but now I find
This
photograph shows more of me than of you:
My
eyes drawn to the ruined tomb behind,
I
shot you less in focus than we knew.
11:28
PM
I
take off my glasses, put down my book, and look at you.
Come
to think of it, you’re rather ugly : that dull ivory face,
those
short stubby hands… I see you
watching
me, impassive, knowing all the time
I
could never quite wind myself up to get rid of you:
Tomorrow
I’ll wake up to you again.
11:35
PM
Not too bright yourself,
are you, poor dear,
yet you try well enough to
cheer us all up.
Perhaps it’s best, indeed,
that you’re not:
I
see less of myself. And some evenings, in fact,
even
the clock looks beautiful. Now out you go...
6:45
AM
Arms
folded, you stare at me, I know,
as
getting up, I fumble
to
find you; at this spectacle
of
my confusion. You are so near
and
yet I cannot see you.
Knocking
over the lamp, that has no light.
In
the end it is only something that can break,
this
fragile porcelain vase in delicate blue
with
a gilt edge. Carefully I take
it
from the topmost shelf of the cabinet, and into
my
room and set it down upon my desk. Now here
it
stands, eight inches high, cylindrical; and I,
sharpening
my pencil, suddenly find it clear
I
do not wish to draw another lie
of
what is and what is not. Art destroys
the
sureness of the thing. Perhaps this
small
chip
off the rim will stay unseen; if drawn, a choice
addition
or faithful flawism- and yet all
create
a symbol that forgets the symbol that this
has
been, found in my grand-aunt’s wooden chest,
holding
her letter to a child born dead. It is
a
sign of the dying that seek the dead’s long rest;
yet,
put quite plainly: nothing. I can
forget
the
past and have the will to leave behind
vases
and words that were or could be. Yet,
something
sometimes compels the desperate mind
to
understand the nature of itself;
seek
an image from the light that shows a shape
filled
with colour borrowed from a shelf,
as
if to other blues one could escape.
:
Man in white T-shirt looking at a vase,
holds
it to light, eyes focused on despair,
seeks
Image and remembers how to pause
and
smile to find himself reflected there,
unclearly
in its varnish; tries to choose
medium
and message for his study’s sake;
taught
in tradition, schooled in how to lose –
though at first it only seemed a thing to make.
In 1959,
Robert Rauschenberg asked Willem de Kooning to provide him one of his drawings
as part of an art project. de Kooning, older and much more established than
Rauschenberg agreed to participate and gave Rauschenberg what he considered to
be an important drawing. The drawing he selected was executed in grease pencil,
heavy crayon, ink, and graphite.
Rauschenberg
spent a month on the work, erasing it completely. Then he placed the erased
drawing in a gold frame and inscribed the date and title on the drawing:
"Erased de Kooning Drawing, 1953".
Faints marks
of ink and crayon linger on the paper, which measures 19" x 14-1/2".
Start
from the end with a pencil, and cancel out that line.
And
now (you will see) you have a somewhat shorter space of nine
left
standing(?). Sounds vaguely at first like that Christie novella
of
the ten about to die, the plot’s edges flaming in to a denouement.
But
did you intend to leave those stains? Two
more lines. And : We are Seven.
Hold
on – to loss? If all it takes is giving up : is hell then really heaven?
No
: what we need to do is to learn how
to blank it out..
The
canvas itself hangs of course, spotless as pure doubt,
and
de Kooning’s smile hovers above, uncertain as all art.
It
is the end, obviously... that really marks the start.