cut ups

Before photo shop, there was photo
collage. And today I dallied at
the Metropolitan Museum to view
a whimsical little exhibition:
Playing with Pictures: The Art
of Victorian Photocollege.

And my mind returned. It's been missing
since the opening of my exhibition a few weeks
ago. A drift, a spin, out to sea or something.
So it was good to pour over the delicate cut ups.
And then on to Surface Tension -- another small
exhibit of contemporary photographs. There were
things to think about, ideas and images. That
was good. Then a walk in Central Park -- a sunny
afternoon before more snow. Time with S and W.
W heads off to basic training soon, then OCS. Have
I mentioned this? No. Not much personal stuff gets
discussed here. I don't really know how to write
about this yet anyway. And here-well, maybe or
maybe not. Is here a room for writing about big
stuff -- I mean for me? For others, yes indeed.
I'm the reticent type. Always have been. Lots
boiling under the surface, like volcanoes in the ocean.
It's why I like Elizabeth Bishop, who was never just
writing about a moose or a stove.


Collage
By Alice Notley

Sometimes just to make something
Pretty prettier than
What's around in the mind to
Dominate
So there's first the sequin red or other
Remembering favorite
Paper dolls a dress strapless
Sheath of blue sequins
At bottom a pink tulle flounce
Of course I later hated that stuff
I mean I
Like the one sparkle next to a piece of
Torn gold foil
This collage will be a ragged experience
I've never found beauty harmonious
It tears at our lack of harmony
You you are the wound
says anyone to anyone
This infantile mob this molesting song of yours
Your individual-getting-rocks-off feeling
But in the dime store's beauty that's where and there's
Meanly a lace of no doctrine or power to tie
Around the neck or wrist or thigh
Well of course not I'm lonely tie it for who
Tie it across the sky and its expansive provincialism
Telling us the length of our eternities
Glue it to the sky of the paper
And I was narciss recess young
Poignant enough to be something that
Another element in the collage an
Arrowed green line on chewing gum wrapper
Youth was knowing before becoming then being
Interestingly hurt by becoming
So did girl know as much then when less bent as now
Being more bent and knowing
But she didn't know what I know
She's beauty and I I don't know what am I
Add something else torn but black cloth soft
With hard and fake a yellow "topaz" the
Most beautiful thing I've ever seen
Because the best is always now and some paint my
Old gold ink
And diamondlike pieces of shattered car window
The really ruined world