DISCOURSES ON ART

What pretence has the art to claim kindred with poetry but by its power over the imagination? To this power the painter of genius directs his attention…

I: THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN

after Michelangelo Meresi (Caravaggio)

Art stands apart. As adamant as all
screen temptresses, she keeps her jewelled eye
in fighting trim. Lids lift, its iris winks
from pools of sorrow onto gloss, fool’s gold,
fun-furs; sun-dusts such ugly hurtful stuff.

Abstract at last, that fatal madam sprawls
(she never even knew the gentlemen);
if I kiss this inviting virgin’s lips,
or look, thorns blossom womb-torn blood. Not God,
but lust usurps us; untruth turns up trumps.

II: L’EMBARQUEMENT POUR CYTHÈRE

after Jean-Antoine Watteau

Islands and their music; sirens
calling us from across town
it’s time to get up and leave
now they sing all together
they sing and blow the expense
and off we go, everyone
on board, each with their grief

III: CLOACA

after Vim Delvoye

A genesis betwixt
and between excrements:
extreme, infinitely
replicable machines
make plain these passages
of matter: many forms
of coiled and cooling shit

A brand, a sacrament
a marque: poise of countless
obedient moving
parts, tooling their perfect
objects of devotion:
stool and motion, the hard
business of a hard art

IV: FOYER DE LA DANSE

after Edgar Degas

Pastels, gouaches
the surest of hands
catching attitudes

crouches, the pliés
poised and perfected
the yes that means no

as the casting couch
claims and dispatches
you, gauzes and tulles

to the back of the row;
you bend your body
to the line of the barre

look to the artist
to remember: you
as you really are

V: HURRICANE

after Rachel Whiteread

As if the air were to come to itself
suddenly about us, our houses thick
with its waste of matter: plaster, plastic,
water, mud. As if we were set aside,
our echoes and shadows pressed to the edge
of a new nothing. As if we were dead.

VI: FATBERGS

after Joseph Beuys

Unhomed, we have taken to your voids
the gaps between downpipes and culverts
pylons and ramps, moulding to the cracks
in your curation. We rot and weep
beneath your feet, the chips and dust from
your social sculpture. Take a wet-wipe
and burnish your modest space. Flush it
and be thankful for some room to breathe.

VII: MARSYAS

after Tiziano Vecelli (Titian)

Exemplar of the late style: oblique
other-worldly: something torn to pieces
by its act of making: message from the front
although rising above it in the grand manner

An extremis: take it or leave it
this colour-field will find you as it found
all of them: fools for life playing to the end
a skin considered their own quite slipping away

VIII: DROPPING A HAN DYNASTY URN

after Ai Weiwei

Earth, running to greet its past
with a kiss; alone at last
in an ecstasy of dust

A falling leaf: a return
to sender with a puzzled frown:
a whisper: were you the one?

IX: A SECRET SERVICE

after Jan Gossaert

Some angels are not in excelcis
but are fallen, hidden, out back
with the other animals; they look
at us askance, wear the face
of an artist, strive to comprehend
the why of glory in such ruin,
this business of an adoration
in the shadow of the world’s end.