Charles Henri Ford, from Layouts and Camouflages, 1977, color photograph, 10 ¾ x 14 inches.
from “The Minotaur Sutra”
Fruits of the soma
Sacrifice now occupy
The wombs of witches
I don’t know what I’ll
Do a sensory showdown
Or indifference
Clouds across the sun
You can see them when the sun
Is red shall we go
Satisfaction
Strangely sustained consolation
Last-ditch resistance
Poinsettas poised
To slash at the virulent
Honeysuckle vine.
Meshing and timing
Subvert convert divert and
Leave without goodbyes
Now poised for the final
Take-off the beauty is in
The position
When you are between
Incarnations memory
Gives up its secrets
It’s your mortality
Not your immortality
Makes magic
Solitary seizures
Half-elliptic so are
Green flies on green silk
Charles Henri Ford, poet, photographer, filmmaker and editor of View, is now at work on his autobiography. Out of the Labyrinth: Selected Poems is published this month by City Lights.
Originally published in
Featuring interviews with Romulus Linney, 2 Black 2 Strong, Jessica Hagedorn, Phil Hartman, Tod Wizon, Lari Pittman, Terrance Simien, Gran Fury, Raul Ruiz, Yuri Lyubimov, and Whit Stillman.
Work that is just about the technical or conceptual, personal or political, is fine; it meets the world with what’s in fashion. But there’s something else bordering on magic, that brings an artwork home, makes it land and resonate. You can’t really teach that so much as conjure it.
Kara Walker
