Impossibilité dancer/danger 1920, Marcel 1915, Paris 1921 & The Sabatier effect 1929
by Derek Adams
[ poetry - february 06 ]
Poems from ‘The Man Ray Series’
Impossibilité Dancer/Danger 1920
Throw away the old brushes,
the old ideas, the old order.
Dada. Dada. Dada.
The future is as clear to me
as this piece of glass,
as solid as these cogs,
as obvious as the paint from my airbrush.
I embrace the dancer,
I embrace the danger,
I am the dance.
Marcel 1915
Sparks jump between us,
sitting with him is
being strapped to the electric chair.
He is a sign
with big red letters
DANGER.
He is a hawk
soaring,
he swoops on the tiniest thing
tears out its heart
holds it in front of you
forcing you to see.
Paris 1921
Paris is a playful bitch,
she has a canine heart,
it pumps ideas, pumps art.
I feel its pulse, it beats in my veins.
Paris cocks her leg at a tree,
life flows, wine flows,
thoughts run, twist, diverge,
like rain in the gutters.
Paris bites, barks, jumps,
round the place de la Concorde.
chases her tail like a street mutt,
shits 22 carat faeces on the sidewalk.
Paris sniffs at my legs as though
I might have something for her.
The Sabatier effect 1929
And it happens sometimes,
that illuminating moment,
like a flashbulb popping
or the time Lee
flicked a switch in the darkroom.
Revealing, on a glass plate
in a way you could have no more imagined
than Justine, her misfortune
or Saul, his journey to Damascus,
a shape held within
its contrasting bounding line,
Integretas, Consonatia, and Claritas.
