Waste & Glass
Dancing On Gravel
the warehouse is dressed in an expensive shade of gray throughout. diffused minimal light leaks in through the painted panes up high. a scrolling marquee of words, barely discernible, lies just below. the soft orchestra reels out from the leftward darkness, plucking from the opening silence some bare motes of notes and builds upon them as the bay door rises.
one by one, trucks slowly roll in through the big door, crunching the gravel beneath their tires. they line up beside one another and halt and open their doors in unison. dancers disembark slow and graceful as clouds.
the music is smooth as smoke. seamless with the haze. quiet. soft with dim light. gravel crunching beneath their feet, the dancers array themselves slowly into patterns of diamonds, melting into order, and they dance.
it ends ninety minutes later as it began, only darker with the sun completely set. the performance over, the dancers embark and depart much as they arrived, leaving behind them only the patterns in the gravel from the dance.
Photographing The Grain
the next day, or some other nearly as soon, a photographer haunts the warehouse, careful with her footsteps. shooting the patterns in the gravel from the catwalk high above. shooting them on the ground from afar. shooting them up close. shooting many shots, many rolls. she takes lunch in between. she considers her shots carefully, patiently. she meditates on the dim light as the day passes. dust motes hang in the air like microscopic christmas ornaments. she finally departs as evening finally arrives, her volvo trailing dust down the rubble-strewn street.
He Wasn't Just Another Poet Of The Apocalypse But Hers
what fish dare one catch in such times. what nettles, what berries, what rabbits. for all that, he had food prepared that evening. candles were lit.
he wrote only by pen, and only upon her negatives.
it was another kind of a literature.
it was another kind of a dance.
she developed her film in the evening. he sat before their wall, remembering, waiting. pen in pocket.
looking at her day's work, he saw patterns in the patterns. he saw the footprints, the choreography, the passage of the performnce, the perverse aesthetic of desperate art. the sheer hope of it all. he saw her own desperate hopes in the photography, the angles and lighting, the particular images caught, the very number of shots taken. he took his pen out and wrote upon the negatives, with great calm and confidence, as if the world depended on it. he wrote with no fear, no fury.