Core edge (Atelier Douze)
David Annwn
Di sotto in sù, definitely
Josquin
to Palestrina
an approach
looking up from below
Correggio in duomo di Parma
or prospettiva melozziana
to see as hawk sees
upwards
opening flat ceilings
representations
deception, a deep recession
dissimulations and simulations
deep into
The clouds rift suddenly - look there
I say you now look here
Said with increasing vehemence
Am I walking / shirtback wet bedragglement /
into eternity along the Portico San Luca
city and the low foothill-clouds
green hillside
shout you hear the echo-Eco-
Ecco si beato giormo
Allesandro Striggio
The standing wave
of sky
with praising voices
a blaze of merging and dis-
merging voices
breathlessly coming and going
sheened across immensity
sun-burst
and zephyrs
voices forming
seeking their ways through
thunderheads
lightning-beds
labyrinthine
cumuli
--
follow the thread one way
reach living plant or animal:
other: needle, cloth,
weft and swatch
panoptic-con
pano-ply
--
towards me in a beautiful black dress full of swifts or swallows the lightning-twigs they sit on crossing the space sharp as lightning
--
processive
as on the prairies at -----------
A setting out, a fashion, a peregrinage, a putting of the worst foot forwards,
a runway of religion with wings folded back,
an ‘every step takes us closer to the source and further away’, entendeth..to passe over the see on peregrinage,
simultaneous of two ways passing through one another in a moment
a way to core or edge, the ephemeral, the fugitive, coraggio, as to Rome,
to Jerusalem, a dimensionless perspective, a Via Malcontenta. Among these are the clothes, staff and rosary
Embroudered was he, as it were a mede
Al ful of fresshe floures, whyte and reede
Short was his gowne, with sleves longe and wyde
birds swift shadows
under / over leaves
the heavy woollen skirts of flying angels are suspended in still air in random disarray
the random look of the breaking angles, each fold perfectly followed through
and seeming to obey
swifts enter the stratosphere and sleep a-wing
Pull down thy vanity Paco Rabin
sudden thing
of being
enharmonic
change
sunset grand couturier
noon deified noon
plane trees fingers sprout buds in air
the whipping of flags or standards
swirling of banderoles with names or
utterances or mottos
the baker and butler’s citational performativity
foregrounding the linguistic
self-fashioning
husks
Entering these early galleries, feel becalmed —
by the ethereal music — and dazzled — by items worn by popes from three centuries
each building built for this music
and entered entire as a printed emblem, codex as spatialised practice.
dalmatic Pope Pius IX, a heavy garment whose golden embroidery depicts stalks of wheat and bunches of grapes, references to the body and blood cope, a vast semi-circle of glossy white silk embroidered with scenes of the Nativity and the Marriage; and a papal tiara encrusted with 19,000 gemstones.
When human bodies cross from the earthly to the divine.
where do you think you are?
Prelate (trellised
entranced, mazed, bewildered, purpured, stamen-ed, flurried in furze)
of the rawness grove
What is the current that makes machinery / Of your court and courtesy / meshed him and starred him with variety / that makes it crackle / of your vein and venery / green tendrils gartered him / that presents a long line / of chariot and your charity / briary-loops galloon him / Where is the serene length / Of lock stock and loquacity / with splinter-spike / and a necessary waist / of city and dis-simultaneity / and broken blossom / only white and red are black / of raddled hosiery / royal needlework / A blue coat is guided guided away / ruby petal-points counter / that is the particular color
social fabric is curtain
Loy’s ‘harlequin’ buttonholes Shiaparelli
and Gertrude’s woolly ‘Basket’ in Balmain’s atelier
Latin name: Fringilla montifringilla
Male: The male brambling has a grey-blue head and an orange breast. They have dark wings with orange bars, and a white belly and rum
a griffonage, a wonder-wander, a
Vele men makeþ to god sacrefices of uestinges, of peregrinages : pilgrymages], of ssarpnesses of bodye.
We understonde that our well-beloved clerc Maister William Wey..entendeth..to passe over the See on peregrinage, as to Rome, to Jerusalem, and to other Holy Places..Wee..have licensied hym
Look (!) !
Io lifts like an ore-bearing moon
from the end of Correggio
what satellite
discovered by Galileo
silicate rock surrounded by
molten iron or iron sulphide core.
Volcanic plumes paint the surface
In subtle shades of yellow, red, white,
black and green
Diana in Camera di San Paolo
The vault is an example of illusionistic painting
Mimicking a pergola
Opening to the sky
A fifth space at least into smoother dark matters
threading tract ate us
always fractallic receding further
playful egging us
on
Borders on
braggadocio
brio bravura
thorn of crowns - theregrowing
wherewithals and mayhap-
hazards
in tatters of air:
in bandereaux
esperanza spalding
countervailing
groundling
if I wanted to – I’d-a never-known
musics in the space of dome
celestes
notes
trilling
an insinuation simple
above parade whirlpool whirled
mystery hurled about the abyss
an allegory of an allegory
David Annwn’s most recent book of poetry is Resonance Field (2021) and his work features in The Edge of Necessary, Welsh Innovative Poetry and Blackbox Manifold 25 (2021). His poetry collaborations with master-calligrapher Thomas Ingmire were the subject of an exhibition at California Book Club, San Francisco in 2016. He has read at Caffe Trieste with Jack Hirschman and Sonoma Valley Museum of Art and has delivered filmed readings at the Hepworth Gallery, Yorkshire UK and in settings throughout Europe. His poetry is featured in eight films by San Francisco film-maker Howard Munson, including ‘Jeu de Marseilles.’ He is a recipient of a Cardiff International Poetry Award.