the tàpies project
hieroglyphs quod magus
rehearse our soiled
with paint and crosses
foot chair eyes
tinta xinesa
a personal arithmetic
in forgotten suitcase sujor
maps letters underwear mirall
sock pells
sums and crossing out mesquita
new attempts globus d’aire
and when to stop un tipus d’home
politics of raveled garment
I adhere I digress
to stutter to tongue
the color underneath the color
·
a garden of forking alphabets
assassinated
sworn to dust
lottery of possible futures
·
standing close to the work
where a stain drips along
the canvas
he was a dotted line
I was twelve hues
with spanish labels
his shadow
barely visible
when I was young
& took lots of
piles of metal
detritus scrap
like his
rash as process
diarrhea as process
alchemical vein drip
t-cell witchcraft
resist
association: pencil andpastelwork of
hands and paperpencil
equals penciltime, a
muslin scrapnumbers to stitch
me to a particular
after the execution
procediment mixt
color scale from paint store
to calibrate
dust as metric
a forgotten
sometimes
let the hand just fall
‘to make a mess of it’
mud as process
‘take your gloves off’
define skin
red wolf moon
rain green
spilled
underneathseen from
water steps
slips/splatter
childhood scrawled tea and green ink
escaped page
the old
bright exile
a red
horse a drenched
lichen
eclipse
rain page
red wolf moon
weapon/tool
chess
always alien which is to say
artifact of other with sky loom
‘wood pushers’ a tool for scraping back the
light
alien/artifact dust war war of blue and brown
tames thought with wooden
comb
solar/lunar
from another dimension kept hidden in a map fold
from this angle
gendered half there is the dream and there its
telling stitched and wet
I want fresh as a new wound
MITJA 1967
1 this is a sock. it’s important to remember that, isn’t it?
2 scratches or scars: define
3 expensive pigment, stable as a sea, with language inside
4 to stop too soon
5 sock sock sock
6 unable to proceed without stains
7 a language discloses itself endearingly
8
9 midwinter sky, lacquer, ink, collage
10 ‘in the bleak midwinter’: fragment
11 something scratches: leaves graffiti on the skin
12
13 transformation of everyday objects into a personal
14 image, ima, I’m a, anima
15 what comes next?
16 the deleted syllables pile up &
17 inventory of white, an overflowing wardrobe
18 to push past
19 anatomy lesson: sock with two vaginas
20 ‘that wears the scars of its history,’ the musician said
21 something moves inside the hue
22 ‘a foolish answer to a foolish question’
23 almost the end now
24 a free life is too expensive, or not expensive enough
25 sock, year of my birth
26 with holes, so the soul can escape
Valerie Coulton and Edward Smallfield have collaborated on two chapbooks, lirio and anonymous, both from Dancing Girl Press, as well as many other projects. Valerie is the author of small bed & field guide, open book, The Cellar Dreamer and passing world pictures. Edward is the author of americana, The Pleasures of C, equinox, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (with Doug McPherson) and locate (with Miriam Pirone). Valerie and Edward live in Barcelona, where they teach workshops and co-edit parentheses with Emilie Delcourt and Harriet Sandilands.