Life Paintings, volume 1: 2015-2020: Will Thurman

Galerie Quynh presents

an attack on the senses, a spectacular, a word of warning.

A Great Plague

of serene terror,

of willed innocence and candied Errors.

Of cows and rats and pigs and pigeons and machines

that fail to gauge us,

and Uncle Huệ.

Things balanced on heads at some given time

but first titles that transmute as poetry, or rather erratic prose

cut-stitched to stifle the glitches of reality

or waking dreams — or live visions?

Whatever crude cacophony

An outside world — the vulgar menace

Plays mental tennis with our inner strength

just for the thrill, that weird pleasure

Squandering time (depending on the weather)

Take baby steps since the bridge self-shatters

and the boat self-sinks and the boat self-sinks

And certain drugs don’t require direct administration.

Enter at your peril

And hold fast to stir still:

Through the Door stands a Dream

of the Noon variety.