Sundog Rising!
Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog
Stain Poetry
I lack the patience to view the world like Salvador Dali. But who doesn’t?
“Pay attention to the humidity stains on the walls! Search for the forms within them!”
Sounds like something Dali might say, right? Wrong. Leonardo Da Vinci said it, giving advice to young artists. But Salvador Dali actually did it.
Dali would study humidity and other stains for hours on end, and all other soft forms and some hard — like the rock formations around his coastal home, discovering endless forms and faces within them, which he would then transform into paintings. Along the way he would apply his self developed paranoiac-critical method, adding psychological and emotional tension to the images to reflect his ever-shifting mind and the crises in the world around him. The power of the blotch!
I decided to give it a try. Not in a painting or a drawing, but in a poem.
I conducted the experiment by dropping drips and dripping drops of food colouring on a white paper napkin on a blue plate on a red chair, and stopping to write a verse after each application of staining. I found that by the third application I was suddenly seeing vivid faces appear — quite striking. But on the whole, I had to admit I wasn’t feeling psychoanalytical enough to get into the whole paranoiac-critical thing, so I don’t think there’s any particular depth to the poem I came up with. It was more of a technical exercise than a psychological-emotional one, as I don’t have the patience to stare at a blotch long enough to imbue it with any great meaning.
Still, the whole procedure was fun. And here’s the results. Anyone wanna try painting it?
an angry ghost wanders with the walrus
Russian ghost rider spreading blood on the dimpled snow
a simple plea for honest government
there is no justice, one form fades into another
neither legal as the shadows darken
a chiaroscuro dreaming
Yellow eyes smother beneath the crimson polluted frost
articulating lips reaching for a single point of contact
round blonde faces kissing
lost to crying men hanging
The third is never intentional but always primary
seeking form beyond the balancing cord
I begin to see the visions
the face of a villainous leering ape
with a taste for scarlet prickling
a bewailing hyena
still the quiet faces kiss
resistant to staining impulse
The green line cuts the hyena’s throat
masks the yellow caring
cannot hold the ape building in strength
dribbling leaves and baboons
wide-eyed fish escaping lizard
The ape opens its maw impossibly wide the hyena rats itself in fear
the snow losing quickly
its kissing drops of blood
oddly twins the loving yellow face
baboon in purple frenzy lashing out
and the odd embarrassed man
with the bad toupee and hitler mustache
in the bottom quarter
quietly taps out.
in final disgust
the snow must fade to black
terminally embarrassed
by the brown colours loving in the right light.
*****
REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!
This one’s a natural. What could be more Reality Fictive than Alice In Wonderland? “Madelyn in Wonderland” posts Monday and this Friday, February 27th. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continuing at:
http://realficone.blogspot.ca/
March Bunnies, the Vampire Bucket Man, and some vaguely familiar favourites. What was in that cup of tea anyway? Carroll’s been redone by so many, you have to reference the references now to do it right.
Episodes to Date:
Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno
Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale
Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak
Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper
Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland
All with illustrations by the author. Working through the Contestants in order of their appearance.
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