Notes on the Assemblage
use black & gray & speckled white construction paper
use stripped scraped & perforated construction paper
use found paper
use cardboard /stripped / wet &
mashed
overlay on old encyclopedias / sheets with images
something like Kentridge or Delmore Schwartz
use soap to brush them
draw with pencil & marker
draw the soap & noodles some stones
draw with pencil and marker for outline
11 x 14 page sheet
draw the muddy camp the bus the pier
the toilet line
close-ups too
—how we look
at each other
what we have on our faces
you can cross thought through it
you can escape into it and out
through its holes its gases
our faces
have changed
can we go back
you can’t wash it off
but you can erase it
the experiment
they went south
they came north
they went south
they came north
this was their wilderness it went on decade after decade
their wilderness their desert their omnipresent exodus
they were packed separated
filtered into a bus
ordered to return after due processing yes
yet joy and happiness
continued
green house
plants, bowls,
bowls fired in the kiln
leaf
enameled
blue-gray—tiny vases
square box moss red-black water
mist sound
you cannot be transferred to the city
even the gun does not want to be a gun
It denies the polish
its sea-blood sculpted elegance—its weight
in blue machine
it ignores its howl if only it could truly sing
if only it knew more than one long word
of one long dismembered song
white dove—found outside Don Teriyaki’s
On
Cedar & Herndon going nowhere brought her home
bought her seeds a rabbit cage & carried her out
everyday & let her fly in the room next to my bedroom
I was concerned about her—I asked myself
what can I do
she is not happy she is not free she dances when
I take the cage outside & set it on the angular table
in the breezeway then the sun waves through
and the trees sway before noon when the sister doves
Blue Jays call & peck at the seeds she spills
she steps to one side to the other and back
and forth she peers at me through the wires
I take her in
she purrs she calls—if I release her she is going to
stumble then Jack Hawk will shred her so
I’ll keep her in the cage—I tell myself
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