Stars in Their Pockets

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #64"

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(4 August 2023) Savage blooms, a year later, the year after I painted two of the flowers from this plant, a bush. They proliferated quite startlingly, determinedly, to the extent that I could not ignore it. They had never bloomed this much, this fecundly, before. Coincidence? Did all that time I spent painting, in prayer, in contemplation, on this plant, have anything to do with it? I wonder what would happen if I repeatedly painted a two hundred rand note. I think I am desperate enough to try. These flowers seem caught up in a pattern that stretches them awkwardly, flattening them out onto the two-dimensional surface. They clump together into groups, rubbing up against each other, causing friction, a charge to build up, tension. They hassle each other; they fight for height, for the sun. The ones who fight the best spread their petals out as wide as they can, casting shade on the ones below, who grow more stuntedly, some even wither and die. Yet there is so much open space not utilized. There is enough sun for all of them, enough sunlight for all of them. Why do they hassle each other?

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #65"

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(8 August 2023) Corruption, serpents, darkness, folded over awkwardly, crushed digitally, in the three-dimensional rendering, swept away in the currents below. Unable to see, burnt desiccated ash and smoke. Each flower has my fingerprint. I see dark tubes forming something like a digestive system.

(9 August 2023) I count 77 flowers here. About 22 petals per flower. So that is 77x22=1694 petals. It seems like a fair price to charge for this painting. Flaming petals, on fire, blazing-fire in this one, as opposed to water. There's something apocalyptic about this one; renewal requires destruction. Renew, repeat, but better this time round. Vegetation often speaks of social systems to me. Complexity, fecundity, disorientation, too complex to understand, relinquishing control, relinquishing possession, beyond understanding, beyond control. If I repeat this image sixteen times, then I would have painted about 27 104 petals. Still not nearly complex enough to represent a social system. How do we administrate all these people? How do we control them? Who of us has ever consciously counted to 27 104? What are we trying to do, and why? Can you see the glowing lava below the volcanic soil from which these savage blooms are emerging? Flowers don't grow from fire; they need water. Can you see the abhorrent savage hell-blooms I see? Is this saying something about us or just me? Is this a self-portrait? I did not expect these flowers to be so dark. There is no rain in this one. Am I struggling to see past my conceptual framework? If these are not flowers, what are they? Ideas? Is this painting about anger? I see these savage ideas Multiplying. Each idea has a dark center, radiating fire, feeding from a seemingly endless well of lava. Am I really that angry? Are you?

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #66"

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God's eye POV: Yellow flowers hover above a tangled mass of turquoise. The flowers have grouped together, forming clumps bunched up on the earth, which has cooled down a bit. There is a striking contrast between the flowers and what they have grown from. Somehow, they have managed to filter certain things from the earth-a process involving the acceptance of some things and the rejection of others. They fancy themselves as something other than the dust from which they emerged and rub up against each other for validation and consolation. Convincing themselves that they are more advanced, more progressed, more glorious as they continue to exploit whatever lies below them. They beckon to the bees, 'Drink of our sweetness, collect our sex, our pollen, and deliver it to our beloveds-cross-pollination.'

Local Image 64-66

29 August 2023

I see those words before me, and they drip with the venom of rebellion.

Anger? Why are you so angry?

Into the cloud of unknowing I go and feel your sublime presence.

Lightning, the sudden appearance of the abject, and thunder, the rolling of your emotions of this appearance through your being.

An exposed spider, running this and that, trying to find somewhere to hide-from the sun, from the gaze.

When the blooms are more vaguely defined, they seem more in harmony with what lies below them, with what they arose from, what they grew from. As they gain determination, transformation; there is an in-between state in which they seem fiery, angry, rebellious, uncomfortable; before a cooling takes place. Then they seem more determined, separated, appearing as something with less affinity to what they grew from, displaying a certain vacuity, forgetfulness, vapidity, kitschiness. The draining of emotion; as if emotion has been let from them. Their centers were once intense with red and black; now, their centers are inhabited with insipid, fussy, pale, flat, grey and yellow dots.

I am struck with a sense of vertigo as it seems as if the yellow flower's maternal plant-body lies far below them.

I listen to my words, but they fall far below And they take me to where I think only God really knows. -- Cat Stevens

Has our Apollonian transformation resulted in a devastating separation from God?

Can I make the rain fall down? In a direction that would seem to fit the image from this point of view?

Would an evolution seem like a devolution from here?

Where does the water come from?

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #67"

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18 August 2023

Lightning, suddenly becoming aware of everything-everything that I have put beyond my defense mechanisms, the abject, and the thunder, a symbol of the emotional impact, rolling through my being.

Flickering and snowing, vacillating, destabilizing, threatening my idea of a unified and stable self-image.

The snow should cool the anger. You are angry with me every day; you call me to sanctification, to becoming more like you-not more like the law, more like you, not less like the law, more like you.

Will this bout of destabilization make me more like you? The pervasive vertical pattern makes my vision flicker, snow, and shimmer. It vibrates at a certain rhythm. The brushstrokes laid down at a certain internal rhythm manifest as a vertical pattern in this painting, this work, this art. The flowers seem like plasters, patches, round rubber things, pleasant round rubber things, plugging up holes, leaks, or obscuring things, creating a barrier between me, the abject, but also between me and you. They obscure so much of my view; they protect at a price; they cover things that I should not see, along with things that I should see.

My acceptable anger and my unacceptable anger. Untie the knot if you can. I dare you.

My being as a cracked vessel, patched up with fake plastic flowers.

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #68"

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23 August 2023

Describe yellow flowers, taking the privileged position of being mentioned first-the yellow petals. The flowers are not entirely yellow, but it is the yellow petals that are being advertised here. The petals are thin and soft, not that substantial, but they are formed for the function of vision. Visually, they take precedence over everything else in the painting. They lead the eye into the center where one finds the pollen, the sex, the reproduction, the nectar. The flowers are pushed up highest above the rest of the plant. This plant presents a facade of yellow flowers. Beneath this surface, we have aspiring blooms and fading blooms. The aspiring blooms normally seem to seek out a position next to other flowers. That particular branch will often shoot out to fill a space, another space, a little further away, even though that would mean creating conflict with another opening bloom. Why would the plant compete with itself like this? It seems to want to create an uninterrupted sea of flowers, covering all below, concealing all, but cannot afford to cast itself in complete shadow, hiding everything from the sun.

I have always found the psychology of plants to be quite sublime and have always found affinities with human behavior in them, too. It is as if I am looking at a human being in a deconstructed non- linear way that does not make sense entirely but enables me to see things I would not have seen otherwise. And I think this affects the way I relate to others, as I assimilate my observations subconsciously. I am struggling to like people these days, and these flowers seem to say why, to some extent.

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #69"

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28 August 2023

'You belong to me.' Describe half-painted yellow flowers: opaque paint, one-dimensional, covering up, blocking out broad homogenous flat areas of yellow. Unable to see white on white, unable to see nuances, details, jostling, clumping up, attracted to each other, trying to make things pleasant all the time. Juxtaposed against areas of transparent and layered paint: dynamic movement, currents, interlaced, intertwined, not completely separated, intermingled, containing the things that surround it, except for the yellow flowers, who have outlined themselves distinctly, determined, exclusive, pure, ordered. The Apollonian against the Dionysian. But the yellow flowers don't seem to be able to maintain purity all the time; there are some that seem to have differing yellows within them, cracking the homogeneity, interfering, falling short, and they have vacuous blank centers, underdeveloped, neglected, repressed, yet proud and certain, simple. 'You all actually belong to me.'

Local Image #67-69

30 August 2023

Someone blonde, someone dark, someone red-forming a trio. Is that Thor, Bacchus, and Cernunnos? Norse, Greek, and Celtic. Or Apollo, Dionysius, and some Greek god I don't know of yet? (12 Nov 2023 Pan? Peter Pan has red hair in the Disney movies). But the former seems more formed to me now. I think back to the friendship groups I have been part of, and so often it consisted of a guy blonde- headed, dark-headed, and me, red-headed. It strikes me that, if this is a pagan dynamic, that it could be so intertwined in my life, unknowingly. Studying these three mythologies has been quite a recent project for me. And that's what I see in the backgrounds of these three paintings: someone blonde, someone dark, someone red. The yellow flowers being mere concealments, facades. Paganism is anything but dead in my life, it seems. It breaks through unconsciously, imposing itself, manifesting in ways that I cannot recognize; my ignorance blinding me. How much sooner I could have faced these things, become conscious of them, and rout them out, perhaps? Or am I so wired, to a certain extent? How strong are these pathways in my mind? If I lived in ancient times, I would probably have been a Celtic druid.

Untangling this complexity.

'Untangle me, I dare you!'

How much of me will be left over? Would I disintegrate? Should this be done under guidance? All at once, or one step at a time?

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #70"

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12 September 2023

Rubber, yellow rubber petals-rubber is soft padding. It can be poked, and it will take on its original form, bounce back. It will bounce back; it will take on its default shape. You can try to make an impression, but unless you keep pressing, it will just go back to its default shape, its natural shape. If it is pressed consistently for a long time, it will take on that indentation as its default shape that will become its new default shape, natural shape. Rubber is soft, pliable; rubber is nice to press up against. Rubber likes to bunch up; rubber objects like to rub together, press up against each other, feel each other's softness, and slowly take on new natural shapes pressed up against each other. When one of the objects goes away, they will slowly change their shape again and expand into the vacuum left by the object that left.

It looks comfortable, seems comfortable when on a bumpy journey; they don't rattle unless the rubber wears away to the bone. If heat is applied to the rubber, it will change shape quickly; all stubbornness will be forgotten. Yellow rubber, fat, and self- sufficient, narcissism. Rubber will smoke in fire and make a terrible stench. Fake rubber flowers. The flowers grow paler, bleaching in the sun. They don't blaze; they seem cool in their air-conditioned spaces, but how easily they melt and warp when the air-conditioning breaks, and they feel again the sting of the hot noon African sun, the sweltering heat of their spaces designed for air-conditioning.

16 September 2023

18 September 2023

Contrast-how different they seem, order and chaos, Apollo and Dionysius. The blood that seems to trickle around Apollo, a third element, following the contours of the flowers in their arrangement, bleeding into the chaos, covered by both, completely obscured by the pale yellow flowers, translucently by the more chaotic shrubbery leaves. Apollo takes every opportunity to seemingly align with the patterns of flowing blood, muddying the waters, conflating, confusing, obscuring, advertising, being loud, attracting attention, attracting approval-an avalanche of yellow flowers drowning out the real, presenting a pleasant option, an easy option, making it seem unnecessary to bother with anything more difficult. Oh, but how much devastation arises from that; how the real imposes, the subconscious presses in and out, manifesting strange anomalies, unable to resolve into something rational, acceptable, pleasant, unable to be assimilated, absorbed into the structured yellow, those fake-looking rubber and vacuous flowers that never seem to satisfy for long, never able to satisfy completely. Running from one flower to the next, desperately seeking satisfaction, well-being-obsessively. How unsecular they become, claiming rationality, and then devolving into irrationality after a while, then presenting a new rationality, which one can ride temporarily, which fills the hole and satisfies, for a time, but then disappoints again.

The strategy of this flaming bush-becoming addicted to the new, the replacement, the thing that satisfies temporarily, and being compelled to exploit, and then rationalizing the exploitation, inventing words that label and cover and euphemize, to make everything pleasant once again, to make it unnecessary to confront the abject exploitation. Then, as a result of this habit, to become retarded in maturity, soft, becoming aesthetic retards, all the while laughing, smiling warmly, lovingly, clinking glasses filled with drink. When one drinks alcohol, one does not become 'high', no, one becomes 'tipsy', and at the very worst 'drunk'; oh, but then it is excused, understood, accepted, even celebrated-one has attained the cloak of 'legend', pumped full with honor, money, and pride, shining, reflecting the blazing sun from one's fake rubber pale yellow petals and vacuous pure white center.

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #71"

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Describe, no devil for a while, yellow flowers taking their usual focus, running along, growing wherever there is blood, covering, concealing their roots and what they have grown from-the islands, isles of blood. Lapping its shores are the blue turquoise, ebbs and flows, chaos, irrationality, leaves, buds, and withering flowers- everything that does not attain the glory of the yellow, radiant, yellow splendiforous flowers. Lush marshes, squelchy marshes, wet, muddy, gritty, where things rot and decay, where things lose their determination, they devolve, dissolve, disintegrate into the stuff that preceded their differentiation-dust. The Dionysian churning away at the matter, disintegrating, their unity fragmenting, pulping, making slime and ooze-the sot green, snot-green ocean, or maybe it should have been snot-green, but now it is a beautiful turquoise color. It refuses to be ugly; the ocean is this Tolkeinian map from which all its characters' lives proceed-the new fantasy-slash-reality novel adventures, fighting the dark lords and leviathans and dragons, the gulf of the giant squid. All adventures would have to take place in the ocean, because the land contains nothing but deserts of pale Caribbean beach sand, with perhaps the odd anomalous disruption. The cove of sirens on their rocks, the sea of entanglement, the Kraken, the slow-moving mollusks, Barnacle Bay, the futile abyss, the pearl seabed-or the see-bed of pearls, two different realities, two different vibrations that cannot hear each other. The ghost isles, on the edge of the map, where there be monsters too, where high thick white walls are buttressed by the sea or burdened by the immense weight of the pale sands. There should be a whirlpool too. And a hydra.

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #72"

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6 October 2023

Focus shifts from the flowers to the spaces in between-the blue watery spaces, where 'things' swim. From the pale, sun-bleached Caribbean sands to the wet, mulchy shores, coral reefs, and deep oceans. There is nothing much to see on land, where the homogenous sand covers everything except for the vacuous pure white centers. An ant makes its way across the deserts. The Apollonian rationality, so dry, pale, and one-dimensional. There is a giant boy being swallowed by a carnivorous plant. The pale sands suck and suck and suck, yet don't receive the water. They remain dry. This world is flat and square, bordered by white columns of light. If I made a big painting, would I see more? Would I see deeper? The things in the water are becoming more stylized, more patterned, more cartoon-like, more defined, and so they lose-they are reduced, they don't seem to swim anymore, but rather float above the water.

There are so many lies in this painting, falsities, things that float above and obscure the real. Preconceptions. Things striving to become flowers, sand. Yuppies. Is that boy being fed to the carnivorous plant as a sacrifice? Is that a dam wall top right? This painting oscillates from flowers and leaves to a terrain, to a map, to humanity and its dynamics. Water scorpions, sea slugs, sea serpents, giant squids, octopi, sea spiders, electric eels, giant sea anemones, with long sticky tentacles, spiky water sun-blooms, ships and trade routes, treacherous underwater caves, and narrow canyons that only the bravest captains navigate. It is a sunny day today.

7 October 2023

Famous wrecks, Caribbean islands, cities, white cities, sucking the surrounding lands dry, exploiting, setting forth tentacles to exploit the land, sucking, leaving pale sun-bleached Caribbean beach sand behind, starving, collapsing at the boundaries of human perception and comprehension-the abject, undefined, undetermined fluid boundaries creating new knowledge that is always old, retracing the boundaries of the speaking subject, well-defined boundaries separating the unity, the ego from life-giving waters- the waters pushing, imposing, injecting, effacing the pretty flower. The pretty flower, an ecstasy of the ego in harmony, a moment of harmony and unity experienced as it rejects all human symbolism, all human categories. How thick this plot becomes, how radically the symbols reverse, how strangely it is that clinging on to one's life results in losing, losing it when all has been exploited and transformed into moments of ecstasy of the ego, and it runs dry and pale and empty.

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #73"

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14 October 2023

A place, a piece of ground, land, that I have spent so much of my life on. It has become part of me. Where do I draw the boundary between me and not me? Why would I want to go, now that you are all I know? How and why should I? Right here, right now. So many things had to happen for me to be here. I am part of this land, and it is part of me now. It is a manifestation of something significant. It is the piece of land you chose for me to be on now. Here, now. Space and time. This space, this time. It is sacred. You want me to be here, to live here, to go about your business here. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If it is I, if it is my will, it will be, you will see. No more words. Bla bla bla, but my will is done in the end anyway. It's been like this for many years now, why will I abandon you now, now that you are closer to me? Stop your judgment, of yourself and others; you do not have the capacity. The only judgment that matters is mine. Scoffers, teasers, what are they to you? Pay them no mind. My word I give to you, now give my word freely, don't feel bound, freely, let them have it, let my gaze hit them on the side of the faces. Peace. I need you to gain a deeper understanding of me, and that happens with good art, when you advance your aesthetic. The images you construct flow from your aesthetic. Your images of reality, of yourself and me. They affect how you understand me, comprehend me, see me. This construction is a lifelong process, and you will never complete it in this life, so you, an artist, have a lot of work to do. Go do it. I'll be the one if you ask me to. I know, I've known before you did. This piece of land I give to you, to go about my business, to humbly go about my business. Stop your judgment, and trust me, you are doing better than you think. I see a boy being gripped by something with long black fingernails, with the head of a horned ram. A preacher. An Arab, with something crouching behind him, like a man with a helmet, goggles, and a red spandex superhero suit, people floating on their backs in the water, vultures. I have chosen you to carry a burden; no one can carry it but you. If you aren't around to carry it, who will? Everyone around you loses out. I see an imprisoned giant, bound by the sands. The sand so bleached now. Squid bay. The lotus eaters.

15 October 2023

Anger, terror, crackling, booming, echoing, rolling, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, dripping, repetition, gripping, grip, grip, grip, grip, grip, gripping, appease, appear, appear, a pear, fruit, forbidden apple, appeal, a peel, peel, peel, peel, peel, peeling, thunder, a beer, a bear stumbling, rumbling, strutting along, a long, long, long, long, long pole dancer, dance, dance, dance, dance, dancing, harmonizing, harmony, Hermione Granger, ranger, rearranging, rain, fe, feange, range, inevitable, inevitability, ability to harmonize, heramn, hrman, hram, herman, haram, hrummmfff, holy, poly, holy, holy, oly, lamb, lion, ox, near, bear, bull, flower power, leaf, leave me alone, fickle friends are leaving, but then you know it was time for them to go, oooo-oo-oo- ooooo-oooo, on moving trucks. The abject, face on, engines on, machines on, computers on, pipers piping, pipe, pipe, pipe, pipe, piping away, pip, pip, pip, pip, pip, pipping away, awry, going awry, following the piper, the pied piper, the black and white piper, the striped black and white piper in his prison garments, in his prison slip, in his lonely slip, who by barbiturate, who by powder, who by avalanche, and who, may I say, is calling? Ripe, rip, rip, rip, rip, rip, repetition, death, catharsis, purification, the aleph, the point at which all points are seen, the point that precedes all differentiation, all categories. The infinitesimal abyss. The maternal cave, the womb. Ecstasy of the ego, when all categories are released, implode, a moment of pure, pure, puerile, evil, evaluation, vale, the torn vale, that our kisses have outworn, dance me to the end of love, beyond love, or to the purpose of love? Ambiguity, drowning in an endless sea, burning in a hopeless dream. Reborn after facing the abject terror of the infinitesimal abyss. Like a phoenix. New, always already old, paradox, a harmony of paradox. A crying lion, a seaweed nymph, a harmonizing lark, a slithering sea snake attacking a meerkat, the council of elders, the Picassian sea, whore, the mammon spider, Homer Simpson, a budding trap, octopus gulf, a mega dam. Holding back the flow of immense amounts of water, below the dam, there are islands of desert form, barren islands of sun-bleached Caribbean sand.

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #74"

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17 October 2023

I was the barkeep for sparks. The abject category, the narcissistic ecstasy of the ego in harmony when all categories have collapsed, the similar but improper, the almost slum but still delightful, the out of all meaning, that which is beyond all meaning. This painting is perhaps a palette cleanser, between courses, light, delicate, disinfecting, cleansing. I see Ashteroth with her bird-feet, a carnivorous plant eating one of Santa Claus' elves, who seems to be wearing only a hat and a pair of red socks, a preacher at the climax of his sermon, a swan with a snake head spitting venom, a boy with two faces, has the ground fallen away? Are we in the air now? The Dionysian areas seem to have cleaned up their act. The sun-bleached sea sand from the Caribbean now harmonizes with it. Unbearably light. The old dog. It's as if this painting has been through the washing machine with skip detergent, many times, and the fabric has become thin, almost transparent. To build the dam they diverted the flow of the river by constructing a canal. When the dam construction was completed they closed off the canal. How easy it would be to break the dam by opening it or by blasting that small construction obstruction in the canal. But what would happen to the giant dam slugs? Also sometimes called the big dicks. And all the other dam creatures that evolved? They seem washed out, diluted, less defined. The white walls of light that border this world have drawn blood from the preacher's hand, who perhaps carelessly, in a moment of excitement, let his hand touch the searing white-hot light. As this world starts to fade away.

25 October 2023

The bronze mirror of self-image, the slumbering kitty, the sated Sylvester, the giant cyclops squid, the hungry wolf, the old bearded man, the weeds of memory, the weeds of consecutive consequence, the shell of origin, the great sea-water mountains, Medusa, Thripont Island, the rose, Rosewater Bay, feisty fisty fiesta island, sea-serpent/serpent-see, the giant dragonfly, the bearded old lady, lake of teleportation.

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #75"

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31 October 2023

A blue cat. I find this landscape beautiful, somewhere I might want to explore. It seems sunny and with turquoise waters, with interesting things living in the water, fecund, full, complete complexity. The pale yellow contrasted against the blue, supported beneath by deeper reds and blues. The forms remain elusive, the patterns are not resolving, mysterious, not there for me to see. Deep ravines, abyssal bowls of ocean, less determined, undetermined, unresolved. If I painted a big one, would I see more? The pale yellow sands seem bleached by time, as if once there was life there, but its time has passed. They are now husks, ruins, remains, that lie along the veins and arteries of blood that run through this place. Words that describe land formations: coves, alcoves, bays, gulfs, ravines, crevices, cliffs, hills, mounds, mountains. These words are full of romance and adventure. Seas, oceans, lakes, ponds, puddles, drops, rain, clouds, sheets, banks, rivers, rivulets, estuaries, marshes, creeks, canyons, snow, ice, sleet, fog. Blue eyes of eternity, the preacher still preaching, nymphs and fairies, ancient people that became deified and worshipped, ancient squids that have minds that don't track with our young minds anymore, gulfs, abysses, rifts apart. If I was to contemplate and let you do your work on me, would I find myself drifting away from the world I know? If I started to see things the way you see them, would I loo weird in the gaze of the other?

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #77"

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10 November 2023

Calypso, metempsychosis, nymph, reincarnation as a nymph, the Odyssey, Odysseus, stuck on an island held captive by Calypso, Ulysses, James Joyce, the omphalos, the navel, the Delphic orifice, the orifice of prophecy. This painting has become a map, a terrain for an adventurer to metaphorize, to meet a ranger, to encounter a range of creatures, monsters, and people that symbolize something, that can be seen as a metaphor for things in one's life-deep and shallow, explaining human nature, displaying, illustrating, repeating. Repetitions through history, the things that repeat. Geographical aspects that anthropomorphize, becoming children of deities and the like, fantasy, but real. Discovering the mystery of the white circles within the pale sands. Can you see the contrast of white on white? There is a creature with many feet and legs walking precariously, struggling to coordinate its movements. There is an island sunk beneath the sea; was it once a pale sand with a vacant white circle? Or an Atlantis, forever lost but much sought after. There are many islands to explore, each with its ruling deity, entity, thing. There is a preacher or prophet who touches the white fire, the white light, that borders the world, that marks this world's end, its purpose, and it seems to take a toll on him. There are people moving within people, a boy drinking milk from his bottle, a sandworm within the dunes near a patch of land that looks like agriculture has occurred; the sandworm being a long tube or gut, a digestive system. There is a rocky jade golem, beryl wheels within wheels, a hare with long ears and a puffin's face.

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #78"

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11 November 2023

Happier than ever, such an amazing feeling to finish a long series. What will I do next? I am excited to see. Sweet perfume, burnt wood, and coriander-right here, right in the present. Can I close my eyes and see? Will you show me the signature of each thing? Will you cause me to understand? Are we going somewhere good? If it is good, will it appear good to me? Give me the courage to face my doubts. I continue my journey. And now I have a map? The preacher penetrates the white light more than ever before, sacrificing more of himself, surrounded by pale sand and the mysterious white circles. It's a fine tropical day. Pirates adventure the seas, like in the days of old when kings and princes were pirates. It was only in the more civilized lands that they were shown hospitality and had no need to plunder. Serpents, the good ones and the bad, wind their way through the turquoise water. The taller many-footed monster finds his now grown and longer legs and feet more awkward. The boy decomposes inside the belly of the carnivorous plant. The sands are shifting. My eyelid twitches. My foot does not vibrate. Monsters are held in their prisons. The dam wall remains intact. There seems to be some splashing occurring at the diversion. Some things seem on the precipice of appearing. The boy is held captive somewhere in the pale sands. I would like to do my room in these colors. Pale walls with white polka dots, deep blue or black tiles with natural rock patterns-or whatever would evoke the sea-dark wood trimmings, black, red, and turquoise objects scattered throughout, and plants.

Wayne Vivier
"Local image #79"

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12 November 2023

William Blake, artist, writer, poet, philosopher, mystic, priest. Mist, diaphane, Daphne, diaphanous, translucent like beryl, emerald, emerald beryl. I will try to remember who you are. I will paint a portrait of you, an image; you will give me a map to guide me. I will draw closer and closer to you; I will lose my way, and you will pull me back. I am here, you are here, but for me, you are there. A gap lies between you and me, me and reality. All I need is a heart that yearns for truth and a humble awareness that I will never fully attain it in this life. But could I glimpse it? The golden fleece and show it to others? Dive down to the ocean floor and retrieve the pearls from the seabed? Ever elusive, chimerical, ethereal, in flux, undetermined, vague now this, now that, yet at the same time true? Is truth a fixed thing? Are you a fixed thing? It is not about being fixed, taking form; it is about me in you and you in me. Hear my voice; you are my sheep, but you are a mountain sheep, a sheep with gills and fins and wings and hooves, sheared and then not. The analogy doesn't always fit. I don't want perfection; I just want your heart. Engage with me all the time, and of course, when you stray, come back. Let's figure this out together. Their gaze is not your responsibility. What a powerful spell that is! I want them to look, but I don't want them to look. Teach me how to care and not care. Drip, drip, drip, drip; rip, rip, rip, rip; the devil likes to annoy me constantly, not destroy me, just annoy me perpetually, make this oh so small and mundane. Childish like an ice-cream truck tune. Is there an ice-cream truck on the map? Will it show how to deal with it? How to destroy it without ending up in prison? Shamed, guilty, not even you backing me on what I did. Trails of prophecy issuing from the white circles, ah-ah-ah, like music that I can see. A choir singing with wide-open mouths, pain, suffering, terror; we wanted to live forever without God, but now we can barely move, forever separated, hell. There is a boy tip-toeing across the sand, walking in a way that mimics the sand's vibrations so as not to attract the sandworm, but the sandworm has detected him nevertheless. My brain goes ah-ah-ah; I cannot hear my thoughts, like bla, bla, bla, ah-ah-ah. The long-eared hare has a decidedly dignified air about him in his white robes. Where did the preacher go? I can barely make out a white shape where he used to be. A sheep peering at me from behind some bushes, hiding. There is something like a hand pointing at the rabbit. Atlas holding up the earth, wearing the belt buckle of white eternity stones. I am blinded. I cannot see. A clown, an apprentice, wearing the pied black and white prison garb, being taught by his bull-headed master; they both wear academic caps. A bully, looking quite like a matador, intimidating a smaller figure holding a number of pearls.