DO

DO
Copyright Jack Galmitz
ImPress 2014
New York, New York

DO

Jack Galmitz

in
photographs
we're
children

tidal
shells
in
part

A quiet leaving
a fly fled
through the
opened
window
and left its shape
behind without
a function not
something to puzzle over
but a solid shadow
all involved curves
black metal unpolished
is dull and smooth
impressions
of an afternoon

dark
as
deer
cross

watching the pigeons

circle a building
old faces at the windows

on the first day

of work
I kept my hands in my pockets
the boss looked me over
& asked are you clutching something
two ways of looking
at each other

tired of it
I was tired
of it it had
lasted longer than bebop
& cool
but a crowd gathered
to watch
young men break
dancing in the private
club's studio lighting
two bare chested men
stood beside me
waiting to swagger
their stuff
and one looked at me
& said faggot

Groningen
a fence
warped hickory
posts
& a few splashes
of sun
dark shrubs
a long field of grass
rolls to polders
(tributaries)
(the North Sea)
the sky and road
have been freed
I do not
attribute anything
beside myself
there are no birds
or men or automobiles

culture of narcissism
when you pass
a stranger on the street
do you ever wonder
why the buried
don't wear shoes on their feet

mirror

at the zoo
it's feeding time
the food I'm offered
I refuse

at night
the photographer
searches for sources
of light
& his loneliness
the stars have
no part in this

he panicked
a long ash
still in one piece
fell from his cigarette
onto the table glass
he wasn't sure
if the edge
of his palm
could sweep it off
without leaving a trace
he heard his mother
shriek from under the earth

motorcycle jacket zippers

his motorcycle
was covered
a mosaic of shiny glass
& mirrors
in the lights
of Greenwich Village
like bourbon spilled
from jazz clubs
street lamps
neon traffic signals
a crowd had gathered

I stumbled over
it was so brilliant
the words just came
"it looks like a cathedral
somewhere in Europe"
and there was raucous laughter
the cashier
hurriedly packed
my items
in a plastic bag
that someday would be adrift
in space or afloat
in an ocean mass
she didnt count the change due
the machine did that, too
she didnt look at me
except my outstretched
hand or at subtraction
& history

franz klines gift to me

house paint black square centered on the canvas. inside white
space. surrounding white space. below a long thick black line
stretches to the edges of the canvas (and beyond). they are in
relationship. they areimperfect. each drips a series of points. of
a kind. the horizontal line is longer. the square box is central.
the eye travels the points, or the indefinite dots, and joins them.
the box is the focal point, so smaller it dominates, slightly. the
line for all we know may be the top of another box, larger, that
the canvas cant show (its boundaries). if you zoom out
sometimes a dot becomes a womans portrait. everywhere
everything is dots. even shapes. even lines. the box levitates in
its white sky. it is penetrated by white and blocks off white. the
box travels. the line travels. each in different directions.
perhaps, though towards one destination. the lines of the box
parallel to the line below creates variation, movement, rhythm. it
is static. it is active. though the figures are made of lines they
are heavy, dense, and so suggest volume, but with little mass,
since the square is empty or filled with the same negative space
of white that surrounds it. the line is filled in, heavy, more of
mass than plane, yet as it is off-center it is dominated, slightly, by
the square. I long to understand: the line, the square. why
viewing objects through a projector-say a night light or a chairmakes them abstract and makes us yearn the rest of our lives to
find them in this new light, this new aware. love of perspective
is not easy; it leads to ecstasy and despair.

couplets could be
pigeons thrive in a factory
that once made iron

tin whistler
saint patron of park benches
my wifes nude
I watch the crane dance
birds soot over sand
white sea of sun
it is Sunday and Monday
dust on the diamond of the stylus
notes note notes note notes
inventory
a body count
silence
like it
nowadays
clutter every
where how to
get rid
of it or
make something
of

it
it
s fall
ing a
part
a world
once
under
stood
sensible
parked
a motel
s neon
sign
in the dark
that
cars pass
whizzing on

I am here always
wherever I am is here
you are there
you, there
you are where I am not
so I want to be there
you may want to be here
for the same reason

a conflagration
put out by a gob of spit
so ended desire
except on t.v. or
in movies of skin
where it carried on
like the shades
in lethe an afterlife
of unfocused light
captured outlines
on a screen
and so it was for me
in age the refusal
to quit there being
nothing else
to please

I enter the elevator

that cost each unit owner
of our condominium
a share of sixty-thousand dollars
earned in the misery and rumor
of offices
(unclean orifices)
& the first thing I see
is the plastic panels
that soften the fluorescent lights
are broken in two places
& I feel pure
hate

I used an 8.5x 11 piece

of bakri chocolate brown cardstock
as the backing

and randomly tore

a somewhat circular
piece of heavy poster
blue paper
that fortunately left on one side
rough white edges
& I glued the blue paper
white outlines outward
somewhat in the center
and Id accidently done it
it was the cavernous dark
mouth of our dark
truth and an opening
to the ends
of the sky
of that dear blue

abandoned lot
weeds tall as men a shopping cart
a water-stained mattress goldenrod
trees of heaven auto parts
a large cardboard carton a cooking pot
the moon knows not what Im looking at

the institutionalized didnt escape

just walked off the grounds
as if there were no men
in white coats guarding
the place nice knowing you
they thought as each made
his or her way to the city
stores with only a small
allowance left over after
deductions salaries of doctors nurses
art supplies things of that
sort the grounds
had walks and cut grass
the city stunk and they all
came back at least there were

benches here to see things

that were there and not there
& to hear possible voices

lady
on the ground
ink night
splayed on a green
crepe couch
a lady
bug
lies
naked
& youthful

the taxi driver

always takes me
farther & farther
away from the train
I need to get home
this dream wakes me
up every morning
while its dark
in a strange bed
in a strange room

a person

should be at home
wherever they go
their self
is with them
& is the walls the floor
the roof
if you call on me
you can ring the bell
until a congregation forms
and pound the door
till your arm falls off
youll have to go
around the side
pick up a stone
and crash the glass
because when you enter
youll find no one there