paris mirage

the sentimental skies of a paris spring beckon - pierced with antique crosses, the tall iron maid, the tricolour pride...

the years dwindle, the moss darkens on stones forgotten, the metal corrodes, and the flag frays - and yet...

"dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacé

deux spectres ont évoqué le passé.

-te souviens-tu de notre extase ancienne?

-pourquoi voulez-vous donc qu'il m'en souvienne?

-qu'il était beau le ciel, et grand, l'espoir!..."

[selected lines from "Colloque Sentimentale" by Paul VERLAINE (1844-96)]

on skeppsholmen...

they march no more down these halls - the young swedes of a naval order...
outside, the dark trees shield the statues low and the tall ships...
they see a light on - the light that casts shadowlinks in a tight room...
a hollow box, a fulfilled sack - the season's ending in a corner...
the solstice is rounding up, the days lengthening -
and so begins the music again...

[at the Hotel Skeppsholmen, Stockholm, Sweden]

swede abstraction

the detrital conflation of peeling paint and sprayed symbols, of pasted notices and torn images, of flaking glue and dried spit - presents an accumulative reading as complex as an archaeological dig, a vertical congregation of visual strife as dissonant as a Twombly passage...

["Turner, Monet, Twombly: Later Paintings" at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm  from October 8 to January 15, 2012]

thinktanker

 jag tanker att...jag tanker...tror jag.../lois

think...thinking...thoughts...
he paid a penny for her thoughts...
she was thinking of someone else...