A final project I embarked upon last semester titled “Spectacles of the Studious Dead: A Gestural Abecedary” continues to haunt me. In letter V of my alphabetical arrangement of postmortem imagery, I delved into “Visuality” via close readings of Stan Brakhage’s “The Act of Seeing With Ones Own Eyes” (links to full film — squeamish, beware). This behind-the-scenes look at a Pittsburgh morgue was the final installment of Brakhage’s “Pittsburgh Documents” trilogy — all three invite viewers to gaze upon critical industries in the city (hospital, police force, morgue).

Reviewing Brakhage’s “Documents” led me to my current project — image- and materials-saturated arrangements of places in Pittsburgh that have been essential in forming my relationship and experience with the city. Instead of crucial industries at large, I’ve honed in on quirky locales dear to my heart:  1. Biddle’s Escape, my neighborhood cafe and bead store, 2. The Center for Creative Reuse, donation-based community craft store (discovered thanks to Noel), and 3. La Hutte Royal: incredible three-story art installation converted from a squatter’s house with found and original artifacts (including a portion where you crawl through a fireplace and what appears to be a sideways filing cabinet).

Instead of moving film, I’ve used snapshots and word-arrangements. They’re works-in-progress, to be sure — in several more revisions, they might even begin to resemble actual poems. I follow forms for ease of filing. Without further ado:

BIDDLE’S LIPS | A LOOSE GHAZAL

trip inward to speak for singing bowls
silenced by high walls and frigid lips

blood-orange rooibos is iced before
creamsicle-melt on the dog porch slips

call forth mesial drift in monochrome:
toothy leers splinter such wooden lips

glass beads dangle above dictionaries in desuetude
– what a life – a sign over the lavatory quips

catalogue catcalls, a fractured ekphrasis, sunchoke spills:
distractions from which to seal not ears nor eyes but lips

lockjaw stops your singing bowl at the door; through
the window, black caulk mounts mosaic lips.

PARADELLE FOR CREATIVE REUSE

mannequin arms scattered syringes and
mannequin arms scattered syringes and
undervalued vintage with detached airs
undervalued vintage with detached airs
detached with vintage airs and scattered arms
mannequin undervalued syringes

taxidermy duckling tickles your eyes only
taxidermy duckling tickles your eyes only
pay in stained catalogues, get lard for soap
pay in stained catalogues, get lard for soap
only pay your duckling in soap catalogues
taxidermy your stained eye for tickles

community handbaskets full of ditched eggs
community handbaskets full of ditched eggs
loitering by doll bassinets, bags in the back
loitering by doll bassinets, bags in the back
doll community ditched handbaskets full of
bags by loitering back in the eggs bassinets

soap only doll arms detached of tickles and
stained syringes, get back in ditched catalogues
your handbaskets by the vintage duckling
full in lard with scattered airs for bassinets,
mannequin loitering eggs pay eyes
bags undervalued taxidermy community

TOPOI TURVY: TO LA HUTTE ROYAL

math tosses us each turn:
we reached a river to find
the road on the other side of the fence
stop: turn: come again

we should be on the road,
not at the river
each attempt at arrival is
overridden by
circular commands
prolixity
tongues

*

you’ll have questions
don’t ask them
before the portraits
without faces

ignore all stairs –
crawl through the fireplace
to hang upside down
in a sideways file cabinet
       act as a file
for the blood rush –

grip tightly
haul yourself
through the trash barrel
mind the pickled onions

*
we imagine this is a caper flick but
leave the calipers overhead
don’t disturb the decorative
books or these records
original to squatters or
these spinning ears on sticks:
original to squatters

*

the basement
flooded with the river
you brought to us
terrific
unsolicited donation
dry your hair in a
performance of relaxation
heading out