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Friday 18 June 2010

Sign


.

File:Kirchner - Straßenszene bei Nacht.jpg



All this talk of transcendence
aside

isn't it true that
as utilitarian commodity




File:Marcella door Ernst Ludwig Kirchner  (1880-1938).jpg



poetry provides
a kind of colourful

billboard behind
which the actual




File:Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Sitzendes  Mädchen (1910).jpg



existential
landscape, with its dry

arroyos of misery
and its pocket




File:Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Selbstbildnis als  Kranker 1918-1.jpg



canyons of
distraction, remains
so carefully
hidden?


File:Kirchner - Die Amselfluh.jpg



Paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)

Street scene at night, n.d.
Marcella, 1910 (Brücke Museum, Berlin)
Seated girl, 1910
Self-portrait as a patient, 1918 (Pinakothek der Moderne, München)
The Amselfluh, n.d.

10 comments:

gamefaced said...

amen.

Lally said...

"so carefully" indeed.

shuffaloff said...

Whose poetry is he talking about? Celan?

Sandra.if said...

Thee Amselfluh, n.d....colores maravillosos...hermosísimo!!

Curtis Roberts said...

Possibly. Sometimes it seems that way. Then I'm back with the Kirschners (I'd forgotten how much I love his work) and the poetry and the possibilities of transcendence.

TC said...

Sorry if this one seemed a bit of a nonsequitur. It was meant to be the bottom piece in a set of four. Scrolling up and down are opposite ways to scroll. Who knows what comes first or last.

The rest of the set is here:

Enclosure

Corona

Thrall

The whole set is an attempt to capture the mood of the Kirchner paintings.

There is an "Expressionist Period" history in the texts.

Earlier versions (much earlier, c. 1980) had a trace of Berlin Alexanderplatz in them.

Döblin's period is Kirchner's period.

Transcendence is where you find it and probably in the eye of the beholder.

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

Yes, "poetry . . . a kind of colourful billboard behind which the actual . . . remains so carefully hidden." Things in Heidegger's Parmenides resonate with this, as for instance (possibly) here -- "The light . . . first bestows the possibility of the look and therewith the possibility of the encountering look as well as the grasping look. Looking is an act of seeing. Seeing is a power of the eye. . . ."

Curtis Roberts said...

So, I'll spend part of Sunday re-reading these as a set with this at the bottom. I know I'll enjoy that. One thing I (hesitantly) suggest for anyone who might be interested (obviously I'm thinking of Stephen's comment) is setting up a Parmenides Google News Alert. Funny things sometimes wash up on that shore. I believe you captured the mood of the Kirchner paintings extremely well. I can't tell you how much I admire and appreciate that.

human being said...

it's true
and
behind that actual existential lanscape
again
there's something hidden:


a very short poem





do you know that, Tom?

TC said...

Yes to a very short poem, double yes to a Parmenides Google News Alert comprised of a series of very short poems.