Wednesday, February 25, 2009

1/2 Asleep & Semi Erect

My good friend Michael Peirson sent me this poem, which I love:
1/2 Asleep & Semi Erect
(Listening to Coil)

The owl put on a pork pie hat. The witches were talking,
but (I) no one understood what the fuck they were saying.

All the sorcery stores were closed and I couldn't get the
dagger out of my face. Hang me in my bottles with one foot
stuck in lace.

Here there's space between my legs and, shit!
more milk on the floor. This is the way it is, the way it
always is. How holy! Your ear...

I tried not to surrender
& came anyway. A promise.
Another fucking promise.
With my fists closed tight
I arrived in Jerusalem.

It's not Albion I see
waving his white wings
when I take the root
in my mouth

This all happened without a word.

Aspiring initiate as Jhon Balance as young magus drunk on Kvasir's blood

Queer Color Theory

I enjoyed reading this in Derek Jarman's Chroma:
[Leonardo] liked rude boys who stole, rough diamonds, like Salai who came as an assistant at fifteen and stayed for life.
And especially this:
In the 1430s a fourteen-year-old boy could be burnt at the stake for an act of sodomy - this would not happen in Florence again. Platonism confirmed that it was right and proper to love someone of your own sex - a more practical way of viewing sexuality than the church's blueprint of DON'Ts. The modern world received the message with open arms and Botticelli, Pontormo, Rosso, Michelangelo and Leonardo stepped from the shadows.

I know this is a long way from light and colour ... but is it? For Leonardo took the first step into light, and Newton, a notorious bachelor, followed him with Opticks. In this century Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote his Remarks on Colour. Colour seems to have a Queer bent!