Hierophany

I was knocked to the ground earlier today when I did a Google search for "impatientist" and came across this article about a Baltimore painter who calls himself an "impatientist".  Here is the thrust of the column (which is about Baltimore schools):

"Raoul Middleman, one of Baltimore's great artists, teachers and raconteurs, calls himself an "impatientist" with the brush, and if you've ever experienced the glory of his presence - when Middleman paints or talks about his paintings - you quickly get what he means. John Dorsey, the former Sun art critic, once described the impatientist style as "a combination of energy, quickness of mind and the urgent need for self-expression." I think the impatientist spirit has a lot to do with fear of death and the desire to make your time in this life meaningful - for yourself and as many others as possible, as soon as possible.

We don't have enough impatientists making policy in Baltimore and Maryland."

What is uncanny is not that two separate styles of painting/art would appear in two very different geographic locales but that the Sun art critic above describes the impatientist style (what I call impatientism) much as I would.  Energy and the urgent need for self-expression.   That is right on.  This is a great day for impatientism.  You can read more about impatientism at the Impatientism site.

All this said, Mr. Middleman's Impatientism looks nothing like the impatientist paintings I started doing last year. Perhaps they are more reminiscent of a looser style of impatientism, like that of Joseph Portera.  In any case, it's the spirit of producing art that is paramount and the "impatientism" moniker seems to fit both approaches.

This entry posted by J Rand : 12:02

Are your pillows fine
              I asked them
          & they said yes until
they started to complain
                 about the way I
                 spoke: muttering
                 dust into air,
                    apparently skewing
                    the TV reception.

Dust?  I said,  Where?
          & they said, In
              the dirt, with the
              iris and the pupil;
              In the happenstance
                        of creation
     O, Creator.

Where are you from, they said,
                         Bosnia?
They knew it wasn’t Serbia
          even though I never followed
                              that war
I was too young; all I could add
       to newscasts was,
       Is that thing still going on?
But now I'm drawn to the way
       the conflict is
       treated in movies—
       with Owen Wilson or Helen Mirren.

The Queen.  That’s what they call me here.
Not like the rock band
          but like the leader
     stripped of his power to
          keep the pillows clean,
who grew up thinking that all maps were final.
Countries were rocks and their capitals the centers
          of everything that happened there.  But
          what became of Yugoslavia?  And what of Belgrade?

I asked them to call me
          The King instead,
but they said that name
          was RESERVED.
For who?  I said.

And they said,
          For the one
                    who will quiet the channels,
                    who will still the atlases,
                    who will keep the damn pillows clean.

They said He was coming tomorrow to change the wallpaper, too.

This entry posted by J Rand : 23:35

He is at home
     in this match-book town
     warmed by the nuclear power
          brewed out west
     (though he never calls on it
     (the gas neither.
When he runs out of ice
     (commonly, I’m afraid
     he just walks down to the river
     and hacks off a chunk or two.
     ‘Sea ice!’ he boasts to guests,
     ‘Never have a better drink in all your life.’
     Sea-hattans he calls them,
     and sings a song to the tune of “Sea Captains.”

His sideburns red and wispy
His boat a studio afloat
His paintings acts of revenge.
As he traces lines on the canvas
     making valleys of paint
          and rivers thick with barges
     he imagines
     a searchlight in his hands
And through
     clouds  clouds  fog
     the river a mile wide
     he believes he has lost his painting
     only to discover   land.

This entry posted by J Rand : 19:18

How are we gonna
heat our house this winter?
One mourner has a stove
but it eats a lot of wood, he says,
standing in a line
barely any light left and ten degrees
behind an IGA
and no place for parking.
A great loss…
A great tragedy…
He sold me mulch…
He sold me flowers…
He taught me how to hunt…
We hoisted one together.
We followed The Dead.

Here we all search for understanding
on our feet for how many hours
at this crowded Northfield funeral home.
It’s not like trying to find a lost watch.
It’s not like re-building a house.
We know the faces
          (but some of the names escape us…
He’s bearded,
no tie,
his hands folded for the Lord’s Prayer.
I can’t pretend I knew him
but plenty of other people did.
As I’m writing this a multitude pays its respects.
I’m sitting in a rental car drinking a beer.
For him, I say.
All’s I remember is the maroon Corvette
he couldn’t get started after JB’s funeral…

Yes, they knew him in this town.
The barber knew him.
All these people standing, freezing
                              in line knew him,
their noses dripping,
their bodies huddled in wool coats against the wind.
And the cars keep coming.
Out past the funeral home,
          at the edge of the woods
          is a gaggle of turkeys
          a herd of elk
          one lonely moose
          & a party of game.
Not yet stuffed
          these animals are glad to see him go.
They will not become his trophies
          (though as trophies
          lonely they would not be….)

The Massachusetts Randalls.
They are a family that knows each other.
His nieces are crying.
His sisters are trying to stave off that infectious hurt.
His son…
His mother robbed now twice
          of men fifty years old.
          “There are no men in my house.”

Inside, warmth.  Thank God.
          The line moves slow
          though at sixty heartaches an hour,
          crawling toward the casket with disbelief.
As we stop to kneel at his coffin,
          touch his arm once more,
          tears fall apart on our boots
          like melting snow,
          the white birches of this land
          bending over to help us up,
          having grown ever more ashen
          with the sound of bad news.

He can say more than most men.
He didn’t die drunk.
He didn’t die asleep.
He didn’t die in the office.
He died out there in the elements,
          on a frozen, French plain,
          on a machine,
          perhaps to the voice of Jerry Garcia,
          knowing his kids were safe at home;
          he was casually busy
          doing something he loved.

The line is still there.
Employees, co-workers,
men & women who worked this land,
           who kept the greenhouses            just warm enough
                                                             just damp enough
                                                             just bright enough.
The man loved flowers.
Not produce so much,
he was different like that,
his own man that way.
No, he was
                       grasses, & cabbage, & kale.
And mums.     A whole field of mums
                       ya shoulda seen ‘em.
Neighbors, townsfolk,
his daughter’s basketball team,
a man in workboots with a tape-measure on his hip
                              and a limp,
maybe some DeadHeads mixed in.
Hunters.  Hunters of seven states
         and just as many kinds of meat.
Bear, coyote, deer, elk, pheasant.
You name it, he shot it.
And cooked it.
Who wants a bowl of bear stew?

Not a man of many words but      (I’m told)
he could surprise you with a story.
So maybe he spoiled his kids a bit.
Maybe he was a spender.
No one’s complaining.
Except for the lack of parking
and how damned cold it is out here
and God it’s packed inside.
This wake’s supposed to end
          in half an hour
          but it ain’t gonna.
Not until everyone sees Billy.

This entry posted by J Rand : 17:56

I, along w/

           about 200 other americans

      (and 200 russians, grumble, grumble)

          boarded a ship
                    slated to launch
                              into space.

It was part of an experiment

          to shuttle large numbers
                                        of people
          in order
                    to assess

thefeasibilityofthecolonizationofeitherthemoonormars

          The ship was extremely large
                    w/ multiple levels.
          During liftoff people were
                    roaming around,
                    acting indifferent.
There was an oversight during
          pre-launch checklists,
and
          a certain wire
     wasn’t
          properly connected.
But
                                   they got to it
          just before the engines
               exploded,

          and up we went.

The ride there
          was uneventful.

But I remember the general feeling
          around the ship
               was that

IT WAS GREAT TO EXPERIENCE SPACE

                    but we would
                    probably not
                    survive re-entry.

This entry posted by J Rand : 14:56

oh, the people will come, friend
they’ll bring their hangovers
& drive right through ‘em
like union men punching their tickets
oh, the people will most definitely come
they’ll ask for chairs they’ll say
how about height
oh, alcohol
leaves me manic twelve hours later
my friend, he said,
                              Art is in the doing
          core one
he was a crazy impatientist fool
from backintheday, Texas
           I believe
                    I want to, anyway
friend, let me say
          I’m going to ‘mass
one of the great art collections
of the twenty-third century
          It begins with your
                    co-masterpiece
and flies through mother-of-pearl woods on a nightstick cackling
It is where the wild things are
oh, yours is
          a great & important
work of art
          erupted from the cracked and chapped lips
of two laclede
          working men
high in the apartments
of a grey and brick city street
oh, the people will come, friend
they’ll come to my gallery
not knowing why
and they’ll pay to see the hands
          of men
          sick with whisky
but having
          the good sense
          to lay down paint and tape
                    that single strip of  tape
                    oh, genius!
          to boast to the canvas
          of loves they’ve known
                    purple women
                    the busted borders of night
                    seen despite winter’s mask
          their bright eyes burning beneath like passion cigarettes
                              orange beyond all else
oh, friend
          I am so decrepid in the midst
                    of my rejuvenation!
how is that?
          who was that roman emperor?
Picasso once said
          If only I coulda gotten that gal’s
          legs open
                              art woulda popped out
your art, friend
          Do you believe him?
but we’re not famous yet &
          yet we’re not quite shuttered
                                                  shuddered
                    trying to stay warm in the attics
                    of unfinished houses
                    the acts, the attics
                    of druggéd houses
you know what started it all for me?
                    (the big bang!)
                    that painting of yours
the one you never did
& then never did again
do you ‘member that one?
                    it hangs on my wall
                    and no one can see it
                    but you.

This entry posted by J Rand : 11:10

Pillows used to be
made of dead ducks
but ducks won’t die
anymore; instead,
superhuman corporations
fill our headrests
with conglomerate
subsidiaries of snow.

This entry posted by J Rand : 09:44

          snow is
                      cold rain
                             rain is
warm snow


     that shit was weak,
     then it was right, yo


“You would never run for President?”

          Naw, I’m too old.

                              “Too old?”

          Too young, then.

This entry posted by J Rand : 22:22

What time ‘s it?

     there’s no clock to look at
                                                  but
I think it’s five o’clock.

like a whale breathing in the ocean

          I keep to my breaths
          in this orchid-touchy
          cavern of mind’s silence.

Palms up!

          The pen is an alien organ
          my reserve body wants to kill away.

If I were a buddha
I would be a poem buddha.

          existing only

when the reader read my way.

This entry posted by J Rand : 10:06