simonhlilly

I have just recently turned my attention back to a project called (at the moment) “Recitation of the Names of Night ( or Darkness)”, pulling together black and white graphics and words to create an art book project. How far it will get, who knows…..
These received texts will be interspersed amongst images, some as staightforward text, some as worked and layered artworks. ( “received” as in: come out of the blue, unbidden, uncensored, unformed, a fleeting landscape of idea cuaght from a speeding moment)…

RECITATION (1)

The Topography of Night

The topography of Night
The slopes of darkness
Its pools, its shadows,
Its steep contours, its melodies,
Its mists and clouds.
To map its creatures
To collate its vocabulary
To define with certainty
Its presence and its absence.
To narrate its brilliance,
Its luminous resonant self,
Its fear-filled halls,
Its echoing steps, its
Vague promises, its
Certain threats,
Its embraces, its charms,
Its crevices, its lascivious
Gestures, its names,
Its names,
Its names.

—-

Epidermis

She moves,
Ligament and skin
Extending, taughtening,
Flex, reflex, a brushing
Of skin on skin.
Dark matter, dark mother,
Between all things,
Behind and within,
Void and immanent,
An unexpected punchline
Ghosting us,
Rapidly, inevitably,
Collapsing neat equations,
Smug cosmologies.
The sound of silk sliding
On silk, tongue across lips.

—-

Vessel

A bowl, a cup. A simple thing echoing the two hands together. A nutritious function. The hands, the skull, the sky. Clay pressed to hold emptiness and fullness. Progenitor, act of creation. Made of clay, pinches of dust kissed, mated, caressed, formed. Fingertips pressing warm cavities, pliant, obedient, holding still, spun, stroked, admitted, allowed. The scent of iron and sweat and earth.

—–