Overlaid signs of human activity - changes to the land & skyline. Constant footwork. Time made obvious - englobed.
Some recent work:
From John Ashbery: Self Portrait in a convex mirror: A poem so long it is impossible to spark off just one line... here is some of it:
"But your eyes proclaim
That everything is surface. The surface is what's there And nothing can exist except what's there.
There are no recesses in the room, only alcoves, And the window doesn't matter much, or that Sliver of window or mirror on the right, even As a gauge of the weather, which in French is Le temps, the word for time, and which Follows a course wherein changes are merely Features of the whole. The whole is stable within Instability, a globe like ours, resting On a pedestal of vacuum, a ping-pong ball Secure on its jet of water. And just as there are no words for the surface, that is, No words to say what it really is, that it is not Superficial but a visible core, then there is No way out of the problem of pathos vs. experience. You will stay on, restive, serene in Your gesture which is neither embrace nor warning But which holds something of both in pure
Affirmation that doesn't affirm anything."
and
"And I cannot explain the action of leveling,
Why it should all boil down to one
Uniform substance, a magma of interiors."
and
"one piece of surface"
and
"Mere forgetfulness cannot remove it
Nor wishing bring it back, as long as it remains The white precipitate of its dream In the climate of sighs flung across our world, A cloth over a birdcage. But it is certain that What is beautiful seems so only in relation to a specific Life, experienced or not, channeled into some form
Steeped in the nostalgia of a collective past."
and
"But what is this universe the porch of
As it veers in and out, back and forth, Refusing to surround us and still the only Thing we can see? Love once Tipped the scales but now is shadowed, invisible,
Though mysteriously present, around somewhere."
"This nondescript, never-to-be defined daytime is
The secret of where it takes place And we can no longer return to the various Conflicting statements gathered, lapses of memory Of the principal witnesses. All we know Is that we are a little early, that Today has that special, lapidary Todayness that the sunlight reproduces Faithfully in casting twig-shadows on blithe Sidewalks.
No previous day would have been like this."
I really recommend reading the whole thing. Get yourself a nice cup of tea and square off a couple of hours to make the most of it. Here is the link.
