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.
at

10 comments:

  1. gamefaced18 June 2010 at 07:52

    amen.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lally18 June 2010 at 07:53

    "so carefully" indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. shuffaloff18 June 2010 at 08:36

    Whose poetry is he talking about? Celan?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sandra.if18 June 2010 at 09:18

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

    ReplyDelete
  5. Curtis Roberts18 June 2010 at 12:31

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  6. TC19 June 2010 at 05:51

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  7. STEPHEN RATCLIFFE19 June 2010 at 07:50

    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. . . ."

    ReplyDelete
  8. Curtis Roberts19 June 2010 at 17:23

    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.

    ReplyDelete
  9. human being20 June 2010 at 03:26

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


    a very short poem





    do you know that, Tom?

    ReplyDelete
  10. TC20 June 2010 at 07:11

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

    ReplyDelete