Exchange of Values

Exchange of Values
acrylic on board 48'X96'

"Structure of Color Perception"

"Structure of Color Perception"
48'X96' acrylic on board

Monday, November 12, 2018




“Disclosing his wounds to the listener was the same as bathing it in the river, until it became cool and one with the river.” Hermann Hesse.
“Thou keepest track of all my sorrows; thou hast collected
my tears in your bottle.” Psalm 56: 8.
Siddhartha’s Kaddish:
As the monk burned
the serene unknowing of his golden robe
plunged
into raging mindfulness
the now
would like to rest in peace
instead of chasing naked sighs
through saudade moors of eire
Celts its believed
lived circular lives
unbesmirched by dualistic papists or
ghosted by mortal green subtexts
blistering saint patrick
for all those hallowed nuns
who rescued foundering babies
from potato slurries of famished grace
And where was our lord then—?
under lock and key
as the cosmos kept expanding
exploding our reliquaries
yet we still don’t know for sure
how our postmodern ideas of “truth”
got kick-started
anyway these are now questions for wall street
not science
or the old testament
Limbo though
devas and asuras know
got born in mother’s heart
on a ganges river shore
watching her lost children drift away
on swirling currents and
insufferable winds
Fluttering above the funeral pyre
butterflies see
seven more colors than we
tongues of ultra-violet flame
shimmer over mourning cocoons
glazed
with splendored pigments unknown to human eyes
schooled to the black and white
of gød’s printable word
Oh I don’t doubt for a minute
lazarus came forth from his tomb
jetztzeit
stink and all—mad as hell
but who hasn’t been pissed at christ
for arriving after the fact
What if
truth be told
jacob had beaten that angel
locked it in a cage and took it to market
hoping to barter angel-tears
for babylonian currency
maybe a small dacha on the sea of tiberius
just compensation for his limp
Not everyone could agree on the cage
but nobody except jacob could see the angel
other than orthodox butterflies
so when his captive refused to cry
jacob hid behind the vale
filling bottles with his own tears
so great was his sorrow
for breaking gød
Jacob’s angel chooses the cage
a monk’s heart chooses the fire
to burn and not to burn
like little gidding’s shirt of flame
like the tears of esau
like the grief of any virgin mother
cradling a dying gød in her arms
when every other gate is shut
the gate of tears remains open
this is the new and everlasting covenant
jerusalem falling falling
into the red bliss of the roiling sun
the fire and the rose
not yet
one
(For Thích Quảng Đức, killed in Vietnam, June 11,1963. at my age of 66. Acrylic on canvas. 30 X 40 in.)
Obliged.