Inventing Double Looks

A square, if it oversteps, can lose its height.

Signatures & locations & an eternity of unchanging faces stare at you, daring you to stare back. Nothing is hiding, unless you see it that way.  Doilies. Lace. Snowflakes. I give up. Maybe I am guilty of slowing down nuances to galvanize, but my eyes stagger, unable to activate.  I have to labor. Like him.  She told me that he’d volunteered for added hours and not to worry; there was nothing lurking in his jam sandwich.  Shadows re=enter.  There is obviously more behind stark white. I must ask him how pink bubbles sit on a bench.

They served cookies if you wanted one. He was very talkative, so I talked. He said we should meet 2 hours after they closed by the dumpster.  He wanted to see what was left and not carried. I browsed at a table of “useful objects” and was given a questionnaire if I was interested in subscribing.  She explained that the idea they presented was that she could retaliate. Visible from its packaged box was a soccer ball with gingham patches.  She asked if I wanted to read the instructions on how to kick.  Instead, I picked up his aircraft-grade birch boomerang. Her request was that I do not throw it.  The flour cost $4.49.  There were pencils and buttons among the choices. I was surprised that he didn’t know what it meant.  He called out her name in public. The time was an hour ahead and he was an hour behind. 

An entire civilization was shattered, shrunken and reassembled. Lit from below, memories perched, illuminating stakes of existence and loss and longing. Pressure had been set at 5. The engine didn’t turn. Nothing materialized except piped sounds, pushing and exhaling, huffing and puffing. A projected image emitted vapors, a haze crescendoing to visibility to a once suffocating city stored in a large glass container.  Someone had to be breathing. Her hair is a braided mop. I had to wear disposable slippers to enter his hiding place.  Dark gray foam boulders of drooling lava.  I wanted to reach the cave’s depth where he was said to have hoarded treasures of loneliness and greed.  He whips.  She smears.  He claps. Songs of shrieks do not bleed her skin. He shucks corn and lubricates his hands. Sealed under a bell jar, reunited goddesses and flowers swirl in an atmosphere that resembles melting whipped cream.   

A blue snake is nearing. He ponders whether or not to give and she to receive.  An outpour of hot & cool in resurfacing nudes. She stands in water knee deep in a eerie, bare forest.  A newborn floats from hand to hand. His hat sits on the sky as he gallops away. She falls from mountain peaks and nobody is there to catch her. They watched as it occurred. I watch them watching. The casting of a spell. Numbers count down from 40. A shadow puppet resembling a man runs not very fast in a hotel room.  Captured from behind, we do not know who he is.  The shadow moves from side to side.  Then the man. The floors appear the same. Electrical cords remain plugged in. Sounds escalate and withdraw as either of them speeds or slows.  Duration 5:40.  I thought the black circle midway down was where the camera hid. I stopped to ask. She wasn’t sure. They told her to tell me it was a light switch and that it had no significance.  Medications that do not cure were plentiful in the frame.  All her teeth were shiny gold, or was it from the lights’ reflection? Chin cupped in palm. Elbow bent. Common pose. I did the same and pondered. Whether upside down, close-up or far away, it still specifies whereabouts. Scotch tape is doing an adequate job of holding them up for now. Work in Progress: Residential.  Mannequins decked out with outfits, accessories included, are positioned, but not performing today.   He naps with his head on a manta ray, content and dreaming of rainbows and shipwrecks. Lurking next to him golden promises submerge into waves of unicorn heads. Miniatures featured like precious stones have been tucked away in constructed protective niches.

Skip.

Skip.

Don’t skip.

Drawings and mappings. Trees. Lots of trees. Energy. Lots of energy. Trees as dwellings. Trees as dance. Trees as breathing forms. Branch structures pencilled and detailed with precise notations in code.  Arrows stream pointing to the prospect of multiple routes.  Movement can unlodge, redirecting concentrations of knotted urban decay.  Thick paper can be carved. The door still hasn’t loosened from all that pushing. 205449-5827364SSKobIND, I asked her where that was. She told me. No couches, cushions, just a carpeted trampled floor with directions to let your eyes do the hearing. Cut. Sound. Clips.  Adhere to single words that flash in scheduled patterns. There are no accompanying characters, no struggles, no rescue, no conflicts.  The enclosure vibrates but nothing collapses. There is an obvious crack but nothing crumbles. I can’t confirm its darkness or silence. Viewers use it like a photo booth, posing as if they were action figures.   

Components hoping to be navigators for future explorations. Bits of discarded activities leftover at edges unstick, seep with purpose; clips, tape, string, pendulums, drippings of paint spilled, chains, wood scraps + + more. Jolt? Stimulate?  An overabundance of blue. I see a jagged shore.   Neatly torn and scattered samplings seem lost. Everything touches something. A ladder that couldn’t be any taller. A can of zero calories. I had to be warned that I’d nearly stepped on chalk dust.  Why would I do that? I confessed that I only wanted to see if it actually was a piece of candy she had stationed under a rock. It was.  He prefers grand spaces where overabundance is stocked and delivered.  Selected merchandise is moved from aisle to floor. An installation takes rethinking 100X.  Items as props tower wide, stack tall.  Categorized by color if it is to belong. Before he gets caught, his purpose is made clear.  His combinations have been labelled “prohibited” while others’ are being praised as “spectacular.” There is nothing that can’t be found. Mud + straw + waste + thread. Abandoned from daily engagements his needle pierces. Innards from machines and man and anything alive.  Right in front of you, it is seen again. Cold calculations bore his dung beetles. Thirty years later straight lines still had to be straight. Seven hired to rouse a faithful copy 96 feet long. Adding a personal dab to an envelope, a funnel, a cord or a piece of swiss cheese was offered to guests like party favors. Questions replaced with new questioning. Permanence never was the point.  A show always comes down. This time without him.  It couldn’t be sold then and not now either. Trademark shading.  Bold black lines. Stripes and dots had to be just like he had done. Troublesome blue. But it was only a replica of what he’d finished, a likeness, not required to be exact. Photographing it was permitted, though not of anything else.  

It was too crowded that night, so I went again. Chapters, summarized and abbreviated. Stories of locomotion, theirs and his, waiting to be read.  Sections of staged erect columns honoring tumbling walls, thick with heaviness, rapid textures, papered remnants, and syrupy trickling strokes stood highlighted in the corner. Sand, rocks, bricks neatly scattered at their base. Tagging and scraping and aging accurately thought out. He picked up a piece of fallen garbage dropped on the shiny floor. I dug through the rubble searching for modes of thinking. Politics. Freedom. Borders. Risk. Beautified historic erosions. Found Relics. Societies in Upheaval. Accumulation. Unauthorized and authorized descendants. Sun bleached and weathered message boards. She asked if he thought it had lost its grit. She tossed a box of AA batteries as if she were doing a reading with yarrow sticks. She placed them in a specific formation on the curb, gathered them and repeated.  She was still taking pictures when I came out. I probably walked through too quickly.  Finished applications of raw materials are said to be grounding. Slick minimal surfaces have the potential to detain volumes of capacity.  Things you never realized. Overlooked.  Dismissed.  Gestures broken down into simple views.  Striving beyond motifs can be exhausting.  Further investigation suggested. Resisting being categorized needs to be reviewed. Snorkels hang without the sea. A body woven like straw. Bowls of rusty water gathering what drips. A talking chair. A typewriter with nonfunctional keys.  A cut fence with no purpose.

She entered as I left.

I wonder what she’ll write.