The Dancer's Backskin [video poem]

direct link: The Dancer's Backskin

Brenda Clews, art, poetry, voice, video; music, José Travieso's track, 'Shinigami's Dream, No. 1,' on his album, "No More Faith."

An accidental drawing - in a new Moleskine notebook, I brushed water over watercolour pencil. The paper shredded badly and cracked like an eggshell when dry. Intrigued with the effect, and having seen Natalie Portman's incredible performance in Aronofsky's 'Black Swan,' the desire for pure art, its passion and self-effacement, and the self-mutilation, hallucinations, madnesses, I thought of the underside of the dancer's life. Or her backskin.




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I posted the painting, The Dancer's Backskin in February.

                                          

Paper Dancer

Dancer, 25.5cm x 11.5cm, 10" x 4.5", pen on Moleskin

May be a poem by tomorrow, or in the next few days.

                                          

Lip of the Volcano

Lip of the Volcano, 8" x 10", 20.4cm x 55cm, coloured India inks, watercolour pencils (all Faber-Castelli), 2010.

This image first appeared last year, in a version with a Photoshop filter, with a poem (that I still like): Autumn, and 'Shortest Route Between Two Dots Is A Circle.'

It's an Autumn image. The flaming edge. Balanced on fire. While waiting for my ailing iMac to open webpages I began dipping pencils from my new set of Faber-Castelli watercolour pencils into a small jar of water.

I had been thinking of Malcolm Lowry; I had been browsing German Expressionist painting, but looking for Italian Neo-Expressionists since I'm on a Michaelangelo Antonioni kick and was convinced there had to be connections, especially in the explosion scene in Zabriskie Point.



                                          

Sand Is On Fire, a stenographic poem

Sand Is On Fire: a poem ball
a steganographic, hidden poem, wrapped up in disguise
(you'd need PS to unfold, a layered version)

Sand Is On Fire, 15"x13", 38cmx33cm, india inks, soluble
pastels on archival paper, 2010 (actually just now, crazy
inking away on my bed, lucky the open bottle of permanent
ink didn't spill!)
The original -ok, I shouldn't give it away so soon, right?!

In the burning ocean. Where oil spills plumes drag through the world's gloom. Swoop of your feathers. Gloss the rocks. You can't know where we go at night. Or why the morning shines. Or the glimmer of gold before sunset. Relentless tidal cycles. Let me tear at the crests and troughs. Go in. GO IN. Shiver. Sin. Dark water, grey clouds. A rain of black ink falls from the sky. Drips. Rips, slashes the wet heaving page. Heat of sand on fire. Burn the slick, ocean on fire. Coral crevices. Grottos. Invite. Come in, why don't you. Open. Open. Open. Arms reach up. Seeds rain down. Wash the foam. Pray forests. Burning despair of illusion. Fruit of veils to burn in. They said GO IN.

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Response to Big Tent Poetry’s prompt (where other entries are linked in the comments).