Suite Dreams Seconded Six Times To Come Almost Full Circle

Max Ernst-La Femme 100 têtes-1929

1.
My elder sister, perturbation,
indulge me,
heedless and headless
rushing towards paradise,
sinister utopia, blissed out
burning hell.

2.
We call to St. Satan Esq: among others,
Prince of Liars, Lord of this World and all its Works,
louche lounger, adolescent rebel par excellence,
horny old goat stroking your neatly trimmed beard,
He who comes and goes, ever toing and froing:
to grant us a show of a little sympathy.

3.
Walking down the avenue,
only a few more
blocks to cross:
but these streets are constantly changing,
losing my bearings,
I call out, where have you gone?

4.
There is a way if you have the requisite will,
dive deep, immerse yourself in the elements,
there is freedom in surrendering to immensity,
being your virgin canvas, empty page, tabula rasa
onto which you scrawl all your needs, wants and desires,
fill the void inside with a phantom of substance.

5.
Swamp of dreams,
Paris, Rome, Toyko, maybe London,
shimmering visions
of eternal decadence:
what a rotten tooth is to love are
you to me.

6.
Parabolas, delirious paranoid constructions,
the sweep and curve of vast cosmic conspiracies.
Something’s not right, something is askew and aslant,
counterfeit currency passed along in a dream,
unveiling the secrets of a banal mystery
ultimate truth is vicious, yet deeply inane.

Graffiti

Graffiti c. 1950s-Brassai

Brassaï’s close-ups of graffiti carved and painted on Parisian city walls were first seen in the Surrealist magazine Minotaure in 1933, however he would continue to photograph images of graffiti for the next three decades, culminating in the publication of the book, Graffiti, in 1961.

With this project, ‘the eye of Paris’ as he was called by his great friend Henry Miller, detects and captures the secret language of the walls and how the city itself is subject to alteration, defacement and obliteration by any passing hand or the vagaries of time.

Graffiti c 1930’s-Brassai

Graffiti c. 1950s-Brassai

Graffiti c. 1930’s-Brassai

Graffiti c.1940’2-Brassai

Graffiti c. 1950’s-Brassai

Graffiti c. 1950s-Brassai

Graffiti circa 1940’s-Brassai

Graffiti c. 1950s-Brassai

Graffiti c. 1950s -Brassai

Graffiti c 1940’s-Brassai

 

 

Screens

La Paravent-Toyen 1966

An eerie and mysterious painting from Marie Cerminova, known as Toyen, one of the leading members of the very active Czech Surrealist Group. Her work included oil paintings, photo-montages and line drawings in a distinctive style, often featuring explicit erotic imagery, bizarre juxtapositions and startling metamorphosis. Toyen also illustrated the Marquis De Sade’s Justine.