Parnassian

 

 

 

Good clean air is like ogre thew, old man Adleman would tell me;

in other words,

when art is ownership

to see it is to keep it in

your heart.(?)

He told me this from his basement

gallery-studio, odeum

of old forms,

leaky water tanks and

the thick witted mouse

that would come and go in

threes.

He humed the opacity of

forgotten Jewish tunes

impervious to the rays

of light from rooms with

no windows.

He opened outdated trade

books with glasses of a

vectors prescription

and pointed out

the evolute of curves

or Darwinistic, Frost-work

of oven birds,

"who make the solid tree trunks

sound again".

 

 

When he died,

they burried him the next day

without obit

or time to ponder

down his sayings.

By then I realized

he didn't know

s**t about

art or poetry

or the axis of a turning

girl

and his studio, turned frippery, was

where his old and new

clothes were sold

and where his books

took up space

from the flat-screen.

 

 

I recall Adleman telling me,

that Art is clean air.

 

The cleanest air.

Reviews

[Sel Whiteley]

This is a fantastic poem: you capture the illusion of the man, his hopes and dreams and self-belief in the first stanza, not only through giving the phrases of an art critic

when art is ownership
to see it is to keep it in
your heart.(?)


I love the assonance the filmic quality to

odeum
of old forms,
leaky water tanks

and the colour that is given to nostalgia music in the phrase

He humed the opacity of
forgotten Jewish tunes
impervious to the rays
of light from rooms with
no windows.

Then the earth-shattering amount not only where he dies and is hurriedly buried but also where you realise, so far into what seems an urban landscape, devoid of fresh air, humanity, like the

the evolute of curves
or Darwinistic, Frost-work
of oven birds,
"who make the solid tree trunks
sound again".

Taken away from it’s natural environment cannot be as artistic. There is something in the city that blinds the eyes. As someone who likes to draw, I can relate to that.

[Emily B]

somewhere he smiles to be remembered thus