de chirico

Steve Dalachinsky
February 2017

de chirico landscapes #2

escaping hours
shattered against infinite waiting
of dumb sentiment.

i am stuffed doll
staring thru your archway
at the shadow of your hairline
against the grey-brown ivy platform

flat form

dying against the street

hugging the ground

a steam cloud in

space

heaving with a gourmet’s glance

…………………….. waiting to depart.

The Horse, The Muse & The Mannequin
(de Chirico paintings 1920s –1960s)

the sad mannequin
carries the geometry of history
within her stomach

the faceless gladiator
after battle
a pale white corpse
tightening

antique treasures
in the interior of the forest

“we are powerless as humans –

powerless but evil”

the horse by the shore
the forest & sea  in my bedroom
as i rethink the philosophies
of tomorrow….
today
in continual recurrence
of yesterday’s
sky

the smoke from the waiting train
fills my dreaming eyes
as i stare upward
into my gallop-ready
soul

(a mere puff)

the silent life

reels with redness

dripping with classicism &

taste

i can taste the melon & pomegranate

i can feel the texture of this landscape

on my lips & cheeks

my skin closes around the roof of my heart

& i no longer look outward

for i now know that music itself is the

inspiring force behind music

the columns lay broken in the sand

& there

held within the sad mannequin’s blank stare

is the architecture of the ages

& the geometry of spirit

ulysses

looks into the camera of years

which is my self

arm extended beyond the shore

& upward into his untold journey

soft  pink  brown  naked

on a rock

the sad sad smile of  the antique horse

(posing)   by the shore

 

Ulysses – 1922

Silent Life – 1948

Fruit in a Landscape – 1960

Portrait of Alfredo Cusella – 1924

ulysses

on his untold trip
looks into the tv
a camera of years
his arm extended
beyond the shore

&

upward

into his journey

untold

can i borrow your complexion for a day or two?

this is small metaphysical interior with an even smaller factory inside it 1917how many framed (un)broken lines form the interior of one man’s mind?enigma of hour   Hector & Andromache   disquieting muses –out side there is the red angled flatness of nondescript architecturefacing the windowthe window of the brain as a spongein the courtyard she in white
sheeted
head bowed
clock at 61/2 to 3 it is a blue solitary afternoonthe sun is to our right yet invisibleit casts her shadow onto the Flat roadeven the shadows of the small stones cannot escape
it is 2:49 pm  he is into shadowsthe way shadows evade their own
presence
the soothsayer’s  recompense
again it is hard to know, when relaxed what one is really thinking –again
the train departsor has it just arrived?
or has it never left?
or does it wait to do so?the palm trees  hang in the sky    swaying in
opposite directions
the sky is filled with empty flags that wave in a nonexistent
breezecompletely oppositional to the smoke coming from the steam
engine(born in greece studied in germany   influenced by boeklin  it is
said)his self-portraits reveal himself no longer as himselfthe double
auto-portraits
an italian born in greece morphing into a nether man
possibly as rembrandt’s alter egothe mark of a marble discus thrower or
perhaps just lifting one arm toward the sky                     thrown off
course by its own stiff statuary               paolini rehearses constantly to
be someone elseis alter ego    where scholarship ends and speculation
begins where scholarship begins and speculation ends –
chirico 1888-1978 / paolini now 76 yrs. old they met in silence
& were not quite in sync paolini left the conference not a believer
then met later once again in silence     chirico eating black pasta&
watching TV —  chirico apparently loved TV
again no words were exchanged at this classic meeting of metaphysics
tho for paolini a kinship was born
1:54 pm  – almost time to leave                         “mental projections on a
further dimension of reality.”the dark but almost invisible figure in the
window
world war one – castle –pretended to be mentally unstable –

admitted himself to a hospital to avoid the worldthere met

carra in the city of ferrara

that figure on the balcony is it male or female?

or just simply a dark enigma?

the enigma of the hour – a brick wall – palm trees – paris

& believe it or not his dad took care of the railway system in greece
he resides somewhere in that area between day & night
afternoon or early morning    the clocks seeming to always tell a different
tale
this disquietingly quiet hermetic melancholy –
medici’s hands (paolini)  –  (chirico) tempera – old masters of the renaissance
& there behind him hermes the messenger of the gods
hermes the out right liar         the stand-in (a critique of the viewpoint) – perhaps da vinci’s head in there somewhere –

& where the palette ends up

how all those colors you hold in your hand fill out that coat you are
wearing                           from someone else’s life    in someone else’s
past

ahhh  one day to visit your home & studio in Rome  chirico

we will dream this from now on

you   a head  ahead of its time

yet going backward in what  might appear to be a

useless victory

and that brother of yours he too gladiator? musician? painter?
all true yet something i know nothing about.       ah
sweet death / alberto and the piazza d’espana  you so monastic at the
end

ah alberto i love you as much as i love all my TVs

as much as i love light and shadow

as much as i might love or possibly hate paolini’s  new self-portrait

& all those images of mine embedded/generated

in his work

Ahhhhh   Color TV          Ahhhhhh my Color TV

how the warrior breaks down     breaks into pieces (paolini /
chiroco)
& we end in the mirror referencing your selves & your work
as you both now/then  reference(d) the work of others

ours & others

a  duel to the death in the abandoned waiting room   naked yet
again

waiting… always waiting… for the ancient lonely (k)night

& the quiet stiff yet impassioned                Fall into the WORLD.