Art Poems
by Stan Cohen
As a self-diagnosed artaholic (though others who know me would probably agree), I become mesmerized by things that dazzle my eye and absorb my brain, especially when both happen. And sometimes, even more when I can talk with the actual person who made that dazzling, absorbing thing and we can talk about it and its relationship with the world. And then all of these tangents explode so that I have to write some of my thoughts down, doing so in poetic terms when I can, because the rhythms and beauty of language parallel and intersect that visual and conceptual framework and because my fingers extend from my brain onto the page, so that the words and lines take their own form.
I’ve had the privilege and pleasure to work with several wonderful artists to create work together, responding to each other, combining my words with their images, sharing the process. Glenn Goldberg started the process and did a set of pouchoirs, each with two elements to accompany my first volume of poetry, which were two columned poems, to be read by two individuals in harmony or sequence. He designed the cover as well without any markings so that the reader had to explore inside to see what was there. Gary Stephan French-folded drawings into the book so that his art appeared in and around the text of multicolumned poems. He played with the text as well and then designed the cover so that the ink would intentionally wear away as people read the book, so it would have an organic feel. Ed Ruscha then laid a number of wordless drawings in a volume of poems where I tried to invert that paradigm and create minimalist poems, paring down to a few lines or a few words. I also worked with Robin Bernat on a series of six prints with her etchings at the top and my poems beneath, printing those ourselves in her studio.
I’ve done a series of three line poems that sit in the place of the typical advertisements that sit on the bottom of wooden rulers or yardsticks. I called those Measured Words and Twisted Words when I bent the wood into different angles. A totally fun project. I issued them in an edition of 14.28 along with Artist Proofs that were numbered so they had some relationship to pi.
I continue to write, though that is often impeded by my real job, finding that crafting a great sentence or stanza sometimes feels like I’ve inhaled the world and exhaled joy.
To hear Stan Cohen read his poems, please click on the players that appear above the texts of the poems.
GENEVIEVE, YOU STILL OWE ME A PAINTING
You always used your right hand
to push your grayed hair
back up and into place,
place being important,
an identified location
whether in your kitchen
preparing for fifty guests,
or studio-sequestered,
or on your careful canvases
that graphed India and Egypt,
at least the corner you saw,
at least what your right hand
said you did, noting its place,
now growing used to eternity
lying at your side.
7 April 2006
(read by Stan Cohen and Phil Auslander)
UNTITLED (EMPTY SPACES)
Empty spaces must be created
to sit
within well lit walls paper images pinned
on a floor filled reexamined
by abandoned cans and then replaced
of petrified paint approaching another
angled brushes not like it's the only truth
equally abandoned art
stacked, still challenging just another
but no longer the chalice to put up on the wall
to carry today's blood
GINZER, GATTITO
for Jamie and Kiki
The long haired girl poses
on a shelf, pale as a ghost
stroking her lost cat, their
grey noses must be wet
if they are some bleeding
marble Marys.
She presses cat to heart,
whispers his name
stating her innocence,
recognizing his as if
he is all innocence,
as if she was as well
until loss broke the spell
and now nothing rhymes.
April 28, 2006
ANOTHER ARMORY SHOW
I misread the date,
got Saturdays switched
and lost the latest
Armory show
presenting art I’d want
but shouldn’t,
consigning dollars
to my retirement
instead of renting
another painting,
sculpture, drawing
for a single lifetime
resting my eyes
feeding the family
rather be reversed,
misreading the date
saving shoe leather,
though I now mostly
wear rubber soles.
21 - 22 May 2005
HAVE YOU ANSWERED ALL YOUR QUESTIONS, SOL LEWITT?
First the lines and rules were rigid,
a midpoint to somewhere,
a calm corner to another where;
then they widened, gained heft,
as they absorbed a decade,
and angled or began an arc,
defining shape as if it were form;
two dimensions filling three;
the edges often enough, capturing
air in endless cages; counting sides
in an explosion of metered geos,
teaching multiplication to aesthetics,
subtracting all unnecessary else.
Then suddenly letting the lines tangle,
weave and waver, insisting the forms
soften as if they were Oldenburgs,
fighting time to see how other well
they can move majestically, how
color can become socks and slide on,
bold and brightened, or scrubbed into
walls; turning never twisting, defining
itself until each piece becomes its own
catalogue raisonne.
31 May 2005
MASKED MAN
The African masks were faked, I know
At least now, the patina wrong,
The wood still too heavy—the hands
That carved them generations younger
Than those that fashioned a unique prayer
In greener wood that saw real use.
Now they are expensive souvenirs masking
Whole industries and too simple plots.
They hide what I do not wish to.
I will dance to well drummed rhythms
Without a wooden face, opening
My own smile and whole heart
In exchange for yours, knowing
I get the better part of the deal.
Glenn’s drawings poems
The curtain is being pulled back
or rather, it was, gradually
as we arrived, revealing
deception and despair,
Mother Courage drawing her wagon,
the audience attentive, always waiting
Trees are only a veil
shadowing the landscape
pulling the low sun into earth
shielding both from each other
parting God’s waters
sucking them for sap
The open air crowds itself
with too empty breath, unless
we follow the good, grey Walt
singing where the road descends
and scrambles round the hills
then up the forever steep grade
Words sit well on paper
while landscapes tie us in
convincing us of climate
consoling tired eyes of choice
and perspective, promising
summer will soon follow fall.
THE PROTRAITIST
For Sid Chafetz
Eyes intent, moving rapidly,
(matching, alternating with
the speed of his hands)
narrowed into a squint,
then down, back behind
the angled canvas to replace
his sitter’s soft, supple reality
with uncompromised image
locked into time, ten thousand
impressions working
amongst themselves,
until
they are only one—the one
that will stare back endlessly
perpetuating the argument.
May 24, 2003
ONLY TIME FOR TODAY
for Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid
Death circumscribes that loop of life
provides its meaning, so this poem
declares, without a question mark
appended, adopting some theosophical
bullshit as if a wine must be drunk
simply because the bottle must empty,
and this poem must encompass all others
because its pluperfect truth is that simple.
Nay, the naysayer must say.
Life is its own reward; passion and giving
its untimely base, replacing clocks and
calendars with semblances of love,
defined in any hundred ways, all
gathering and gathering, finally releasing
with smiles and similes, as if, as if
having is better than halving--until it isn’t;
as if things possessed don’t reverse all roles
over time, Ozymandius; as if a single canvas
can contain everyone’s favorite painting; as if
elephants should paint rather than dance
and I should bow reverently to yesterday’s
truths while I await tomorrow’s.
Corroboration
For Ed Ruscha
How we contort words
Or couple them to images
Vague mists rising from debris,
Anecdotes seeking a fulcrum
From their inheritance
Into airless bell jars,
Signifiers cascading from memories,
Trying to snag real answers
Before they evaporate
Are we reconstructing Indians
By drawing their vanished tents
Remembering they too died in Viet Nam
And on the highways to suburbia
Or in darkened houses there
Feb 26, 1989
THE GALLERIES OF DAVID BRODY
Entering
quietly and with caution
hands handed to each other
scapulae touching
as much as lips
with fresh eyes open
in those twenties
respectful, grateful
for frames and pedestals
to say, "This is Art,"
with what we ask
worth the minutes
of your eyes and feet,
the time you ignored
the metaphors of paint
and light put on canvas
to illumine you
for the centuries
and the nameless
gods that have eaten them
swaggered fallibly
despite years in their bellies
Not knowing
even the questions
the artist asks, but
conceivably answers,
the words are formed
the same way as the world
and image before
wanting, expecting
knowledge to ascend
with all the Jesuses
that have risen
in a hundred flesh tones
with silence and awe
for place and presence ended
as if the antecedents
and accomplishments
could now be understood
combined in meaningful
order so that you / we
can walk among gods
and measure some part
of your / their movement.
To sanctu
sanctorum, beyond
artificial walls of
this month's exhibition
to the vaults of
an eternity vanished
and held like my own
renewed, reviewed
under the guise of
a painting that restates
some fractioned truth
in less than monumental
passages, but monumental
enough to acquire
and allow vision
of the hidden offices
that reverse questions
now asked of us
such that we pretend
our answers may be theirs
chronicled and perhaps
worth retelling.
April 1995
All photos by Deanna Sirlin, unless otherwise noted.
Clockwise, from upper left:
Stan Cohen with Phil Auslander
Measured Words by Stan Cohen
Stan Cohen
Genevieve Arnold. Photo: Joe Massey
African masks in Stan Cohen's office
Kiki Smith, Pieta, 1999. Collection and photo: Whitney Museum of American Art.
Two, a book by Stan Cohen and Glenn Goldberg, published by Steam Press in 1991.
Stan Cohen.