THE ARTIST
for Bruce Conner
THE ARTIST has faces that are nude ladies and feathers. Women pose in the visage of the whirlpool raising bare arms and arching bare thighs. Tentacles of squid sway down among pinions of African eagles from the artist's beret and they tangle white hair. In the blackness of his face, spider webs and lichens, are matted together making a waterfall that splashes down to the chin. His head tilts down, staring into the vision. The glow of his consciousness is an aureole. --A HUGE WHOLE THOUGHT in all of its myriadness is what he grasps for. His black velvet beret is a dome of power in the haunted light of the room. IT IS ALL OUT THERE. EVERYTHING IS OUT THERE! It is superlatively clear. It will all come together in connected fragments --oceanic!--floating--everywhere in the nineteen directions. He sees it clearly--it is all so endless, so sensory. His satin neckband is twisted and knotted with demon emanations. His gentle old jacket is awash with mystic wrinklings. The jewel that he wears is a star cluster carved out of coal. Horseback rides are engraved in the gold frame, there are childhood memories of fields of grass with a mouth on each blade telling stories of the origins of pure matter and nothingness. Foxes circle around it all and they bark in honor of the softness of mulberries.