I was very taken by the Idea that Alberto Giacometti
taking six sculptures in matchboxes back to Paris.
So I had six poems I imagine could go into matchboxes…
” In 1940 he stopped working from life, making heads and standing female figures from memory.The size of his figures shrank remarkably” some of them were no bigger than almonds”.
Between 1942 and 1946 he lived in Geneva and took the work of those years back to Paris in matchboxes, according to a memoir by his friend Alfred Akira”
a). ” It began as a whisper
The choir of tubers
Parliaments beneath the soil
Repeating centuries
Teaching progress
Through light igniting
The seasons damp cloth”.
b). The people’s opinion
One swift injection
Would dispense of those
Twisted by God’s malice
Ropewise.
Without spoons just hands
scoop up peas and mince.
c). Your zigzag language
Departing words for me to pick
From a tree of mystery
Between consolation and fear
When red upturning chairs
The wooden tide of home- time
Moves towards one who should
Have left a longtime ago.
d). We?
What did we shake through the sieve?
Coffee?
Sacred soil?
Pepper?
The last man?
Dare I say who?
e) Have we time for style?
When in the streets below
Words like Freedom and Justice.
Truth the soldiers are dispersing
At gunpoint.
d). Cocaine
I want to destroy this body
This mind
Powder answers?
White days
White nights
White requests for Eternity
White blizzards of unknowing
The end is still death.
.
Malcolm Paul
Picture Nick Victor
.