Daria Tavoularis. Living Room, 2007, 24 x 19 in, pen and ink on paper. Courtesy of the artist.
In the carpet
is a story, man buys camel,
camel walks, camel walks,
and several geometric proofs.
The door is alarmed!
But the window has a
vacant sign:
upstairs room,
shelf, cabinet, lock,
fair rent.
In the living room,
an armchair where
one child sits,
seriously unappealing,
wanting
to scotchtape over every line
to save every word,
to give itself more glare.
It’s lonely for
a mother who isn’t anywhere
at home. Who accounts
for the desert with a calculator
that records amounts
in and out printing a list
that goes on, on, on,
that stops, turns a corner,
greets the isosceles
where the poker rests,
shelters the floor, meets the door,
tells the child, well
one thing’s sure.
|
|
 Daria Tavoularis. More, 2007, 9 x 8 in, pen and ink on paper. Courtesy of the artist.
UTOPIA WITH ANCESTORS AND SAINT
The descendants wear black and the saint
wears fur and gold. There are several
sirs and Anne who married John sits once
nosing the vase and once behind herself,
in a painting, older. The clock measures
nothing no place with inaccurate precision
in the impossible room. Later, lesser,
I’m the feral sister and the homebody both,
in Trafalgar Square with the fester birds
and undone and poor. The namesake counts.
Her father’s favorite points: If it were permitted me
to change my Fate according to my will…
It’s raining, ordinarily. My traits aren’t original,
but they’re hardly inherited. With everything before
me bending into the frame, I will myself a more.
|
Daria Tavoularis, Crow. 2006, 12 x 16 in, pen and ink on paper. Courtesy of the artist.
THE RELIEF OF THE EAGLE-HEADED GENIUS
Why, you might ask, is the eagle-headed genius
here in America and, specifically, in the college’s collection
and, furthermore, carrying a bucket of semen?
You might try to touch the genius,
but security would tell you no, nicely,
because although the genius is here for you,
he is to be unmolested.
The eagle-headed genius
fertilizes a sunflower.
No, a foreign flower like a sunflower,
but not very. The genius fits in badly.
Nearby a cycladic figure holds her stomach,
and throughout the ancient cell, objects seem
to settle in, or pray, or languish.
The city of the eagle-headed genius is far away
and dead, unfortunately.
Dead, too, is Dr. Henry John Lobdell,
class of 1849, who donated the genius.
You might want to photograph
the eagle-headed genius or the story
etched around his beak and wings.
That’s allowed.
You might want to excavate
Dr. Henry and display what remains,
you might be curious, his historical
knuckle-bone, his place in the world,
the majesty of burial, you might wonder
what he wondered, you might wish
to save him from his ground.
Poem and Picture
Daria Tavoularis. Living Room, 2007, 24 x 19 in, pen and ink on paper. Courtesy of the artist.
LIVING ROOM
In the carpet
is a story, man buys camel,
camel walks, camel walks,
and several geometric proofs.
The door is alarmed!
But the window has a
vacant sign:
upstairs room,
shelf, cabinet, lock,
fair rent.
In the living room,
an armchair where
one child sits,
seriously unappealing,
wanting
to scotchtape over every line
to save every word,
to give itself more glare.
It’s lonely for
a mother who isn’t anywhere
at home. Who accounts
for the desert with a calculator
that records amounts
in and out printing a list
that goes on, on, on,
that stops, turns a corner,
greets the isosceles
where the poker rests,
shelters the floor, meets the door,
tells the child, well
one thing’s sure.
Daria Tavoularis. More, 2007, 9 x 8 in, pen and ink on paper. Courtesy of the artist.
UTOPIA WITH ANCESTORS AND SAINT
The descendants wear black and the saint
wears fur and gold. There are several
sirs and Anne who married John sits once
nosing the vase and once behind herself,
in a painting, older. The clock measures
nothing no place with inaccurate precision
in the impossible room. Later, lesser,
I’m the feral sister and the homebody both,
in Trafalgar Square with the fester birds
and undone and poor. The namesake counts.
Her father’s favorite points: If it were permitted me
to change my Fate according to my will…
It’s raining, ordinarily. My traits aren’t original,
but they’re hardly inherited. With everything before
me bending into the frame, I will myself a more.
Daria Tavoularis, Crow. 2006, 12 x 16 in, pen and ink on paper. Courtesy of the artist.
THE RELIEF OF THE EAGLE-HEADED GENIUS
Why, you might ask, is the eagle-headed genius
here in America and, specifically, in the college’s collection
and, furthermore, carrying a bucket of semen?
You might try to touch the genius,
but security would tell you no, nicely,
because although the genius is here for you,
he is to be unmolested.
The eagle-headed genius
fertilizes a sunflower.
No, a foreign flower like a sunflower,
but not very. The genius fits in badly.
Nearby a cycladic figure holds her stomach,
and throughout the ancient cell, objects seem
to settle in, or pray, or languish.
The city of the eagle-headed genius is far away
and dead, unfortunately.
Dead, too, is Dr. Henry John Lobdell,
class of 1849, who donated the genius.
You might want to photograph
the eagle-headed genius or the story
etched around his beak and wings.
That’s allowed.
You might want to excavate
Dr. Henry and display what remains,
you might be curious, his historical
knuckle-bone, his place in the world,
the majesty of burial, you might wonder
what he wondered, you might wish
to save him from his ground.