The East Side of the Mind
The tunnel is long, but the sun beams through Displaying the figures advertising their personality letters And those landscapes captured by those learning from the shores, bathing themselves in water and light The ways of the world seem comforting and peaceful As the walls, with their oil-based beauty, makes the canvases stay All for the mass of spectators The world is now fully illuminated after six-odd century-long cycles of darkness and unjust rule. We are no longer slaves in chains to the black and dark cathedral halls Or corpses on the other side of the tapestry, a tragedy from an unnatural drama We can smile in the sunlight as we dive from the mountaintop To the aqua lake below We move forward with delight as we cross another threshold of time… Yes… it is still there… Hope hasn’t left us to join a Coventry! It’s so…
HOLY SHIT NO! IT’S ALL GONE FUCKING SHIT, IT’S ALL GONE… I shutter at the obituary; curses to the papers; curses it all the fuckers! Goddamn it all… especially those sitting in high places near the warrior cultures use to reign! Oh, God! It’s getting darker… Darker… Darker… God, it’s dark through the walkway…
White is the color still when you walk the streets. That is because the wall is the only pure thing left when a grainy canopy hangs over our heads. The gray carpet doesn’t provide any comfort for nature’s form of transportation. In the mass transit of neural cells, feelings jump out onto the tracks Only to get smashed up and splattered on the cranial walls, oozing and dripping down. The retinal messengers report blood on the cobblestones and torn fields. (They are growing poppies on Flanders’ Fields, they say with fear in their voices) It does take some level of genius to paint an entire canvas one color. You may be socialist for painting on burlap… but they call you bourgeois in any case for having Creation put on auction and finding a nest made of a philanthropist’s fortune. Then you change your style to demonstrate transformed mind and concave thinking. You Bend wire splatter paint making bas relief out of acrylic reporting to spontaneous stations But you just learn from that inner circle of friends from the coffeehouse this: Suicide is now the new form of martyrdom. Since we realize that we are mere crud underneath someone’s fingernails And no God has the courtesy of washing us from the muck and grime that we bask ourselves in. We call it duty; sympathizers call it a tragedy; everyone else calls it a statistic that made the nightly news.
I learned something from the preacher when I entered into the sanctuary (Very rare to find one in the city that I’m in) He said: WE FIND NEW LANGUAGES EVERY DAY. WE ARE FORTUNATE TO LIVE IN A TIME WHEN NEURAL CONNECTIONS ARE CONTINUOUSLY REWIRED TO MEET THE DEMAND OF ARTISTIC TELECOMMUNICATION GOD IS NOT DEAD, CONTRARY TO THE SOPHISCATED BELIEFS OF THOSE DWELLING IN THE CAFES RIGHT NOW. HE IS RESURRECTING HIMSELF TO A CYCLE OF CANVASES. HIS BODY IS NOW COMPOSED OF OIL, ACRYLIC AND DUCO. FOR CHRIST TOOK THE FIRST JOURNEY INSIDE A MAN’S SOUL SLOWLY, HE BECAME IMPURE BUT WAS MADE PURE AGAIN IN GOD’S TIME, HE GAVE US A SIGN OF PROGRESS AND EVOLUTION WE DON’T UNDERSTAND IT, EVEN TODAY WITH OUR DATABASE INTELLECT. THROUGH SIGHT AND DRIVING EMOTIONAL WATER WHICH FLOWS IN US EVEN NOW WE CAN FINALLY SEE BECAUSE WE ARE NO LONGER MADE BLIND. The white collar may appear to suffocate him but his words are not far from the Truth.
We have new styles and new modes of expression. For an example, I used to think that a title has an obligation to tell the truth. Bust since the artist is the rightful owner of the intellectual property rights (even onto the grave) The government agencies can’t bring them to Madame Justice on the grounds of false advertising. (After all, the government is letting us check in our coats for free And the government is currently fooling around with Justice in the chamber room) The artist has access to new types of material. He is not only promised refills of neon and xenon But is guaranteed an electrical outlet for projection purposes He gets protection in case he happens to be fooling around with a prostitute. This is so that when he gets a revelation from out of the blue, The hotel on 17. Rue can’t yell at him because he is taking home some towels and a bathrobe (The legislators can understand a paintbrush, but not when it’s in the hands of an artist) The artist has the cure for modern-day oppression… he makes it a subject. The subject is treated very well and these abstract guys can be looked on as our version of a portrait painter. It can be approached with humor through its construction and/or its labeling. It can be abstract and arbitrary yet understood with the use of the appropriate reference materials. Then, there is a photographer who took close-ups of the school children. He says, with tears in his eyes, that he knows nothing about them beyond 31/1/1933 (With the documentary knowledge that we have now, does he want to know?) Stockholm presented him with numerous titles: POET OF THE PSEUDOSPEECH OF MODERN TIMES SPECIALIST OF THE FOURTH DIMENSION SECRETARY TO THE GATES OF HEAVEN, HELL AND EARTH GROUNDSKEEPER OF THE NEW MULTICOLORED JUNKYARD SURVEYOR OF THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY He is the new leader of the expedition as well. He is the guide that will lead us through this troubling era. He eventually went solo because the darkness scared the shit out of him. But he was also far ahead because he had to run away from it.
I have to watch the words melt like the snow
(No thanks to the time and to those blasted monoxides on earth)
The body and hand is weary now from seeing anger and various other reflections
Made by distorted visionaries and hot-tempered doctrines.
They all watch me writing down my urges, impulses and ideas.
They are thinking that I’m doing this as an assignment because a teacher put a gun to my head
I don’t know what direction we should take:
• One way is that we should continue deconstructing, then reconstructing familiar objects
• Another way is that we explore the mind’s abstract nature and transforming it through geometry
• Maybe we should try to recapture traditionalist ways with our newly acquired knowledge and methods
• Did we already rule out just painting when the puppeteer tells us to do so?
The white walls, the gray carpet and the long distance traveled purge out my strength and my mind.
I feel like there is nothing left to say…
Have I suddenly found myself in a sanctuary? I went up the stairs of a neoclassical castle tower made of pink marble. The skylight above me was pitch black so the outside meant nothing to me. It has to be this way because of limited viewing (I was one of the lucky ones) One man regresses back to the primordial roots of childhood creativity He speaks French, which I know little of sad to say… a shortcoming to one striving to be liberal art minded I think his words demand silence It clears away noise to make room for thought and reflection We speak very little in this room We watch with simple eyes. We criticize and contemplate using basic vocabulary. Those simple colors soothe me, even now. It keeps me still and allows me to write down my mind. I think he is making us return and rediscover the first school of art. Let me stay awhile [breathes slowly, closes his eyes, gazes at the works]
I have to end this journey soon. After all, it gets overwhelming to live in a dream world forever. The flesh is now weak and the bones Tired from writing down random thoughts and images But the works are still there Admired by people of various natures Representing and reflecting a moment between the World and the creator. They (unlike some of those masterminds) like the company of dozens of strangers They long, most of all, for my presence once again. I will come back again. Maybe I’ll bring my mother (after all, she admires art’s curious way of reflecting personas) Or perhaps my father will come along (for he enjoys walking through the portals of surrealism) What about my brother? (for he speaks his mind on nearly everything Even the things a scholar wouldn’t dare touch) My friends (could they understand me better?) My girlfriend (for isn’t it an opportunity to know about each other better with the help of visuals?) I definitely know that God will be coming with me again. He’s always there. The dark walkway doesn’t seem terrifying or claustrophobic when you pass through it again. For the east side of the mind may seem like unexplored and untamed wilderness But they have greeted me with open arms And they let me return home
Date of First Draft: 28 December 1999
Information:
- This poem was written at the East Building of the National Gallery of Art. Each section was written after looking at paintings and stopping for a moment to write them. Prelude, Part I was written near the Garden Café, West Building. Prelude, Part II through Part II was written in the Concourse Level (Barnett Newman exhibit). Prelude, Part II was developed at home. Part III was written in the Concourse Level (Barnett Newman exhibit). Part IV was written in the Upper Level, near the stairs to the Tower Level. Part V was written in the Tower Level. Postlude was written at the Coffee Bar on the Upper Level.
- Parts I and II were dedicated to Lisa Berberian and Arshile Gorky (1904-1948).