My impulse was to write the last black play ever for myself. I really believed if I put it all into one play, people would leave me alone.
—
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Two Poems by Daniel Flores y Ascencio
- John Patrick Shanley by Craig Gholson
- Sandra Bernhard by Gary Indiana
- Gregor Von Rezzori by Bruce Wolmer
- Richard Prince by Marvin Heiferman
- The Round Table Project: Part II by Saul Ostrow
Interviews
- Four Poems by Roberto Sosa
- Three Poems by Roque Dalton
- The Dogs by Burt Barr
- Four Poems by Claribel Alegría
- The Simplest Thing by Cookie Mueller
- Two Poems by Daniel Flores y Ascencio
- Shadow of Angels by Gary Indiana
- Seven Poems by Henrik Ibsen
- Twisted Intentions by Lynne Tillman
- Paulie Is Born by Michael Greenberg
First Proof
- Eagle Mound Earthworks, Newark, Ohio by Suzanne Williamson
- Elizabeth Cannon by Taro Suzuki
- Untitled by William Anastasi
- Two Photographs by Adam Fuss
- Playing on the Girls’ Team by Katherine Kreisher
- Untitled Photograph by Barbara Ess
- Standard Wait (silent C for MD) by Alan Scarritt
- John Galliano by Lynda Benglis
- Christian Lacroix by Billy Sullivan
- Classroom by Lynne Cohen
- Artists Choose Designers by Elizabeth Cannon
- Azzedine Alaïa by David Walter McDermott & Peter McGough
- Sally Beers (Umbrella Raincoat) and Yorke & Cole by Ray Smith
- Cristobal Balenciaga by David Seidner
- Fallingwater by Dennis Adams
- Yohiji Yamatoto by Robert Longo & Frank Okenfels
- Sixth Leaf by Sokhi Wagner
- Embrasure II by Georges Rousse
- David Mark Winfield by Susan Grayson
- Isaac Mizrahi, #104, 605, 200 (1988) by Suzan Etkin
- Kitchen Window with Corrall by James Casebere
- Charge II by Jane Dickson
More
William Anastasi, Untitled, 1987, photomural with graphite and white correction fluid, 7 feet 6 inches × 4 feet 5 inches. Courtesy of Bess Cutler Gallery.
Homosapiens
My contradictions
Come neither from desperation
Nor frustration or
Confrontations with an opponent
But with a contesting bystander
I like you
Your world repulses me
Absolute refusal to be anything
(My nationality is)
But my own suspicion
Your beauty
Is questionable
Morose encounter
My clash with your victory
Revolution is attraction
Malice of another kind
Whimsical delight
Our meetings
Pleasant encounters that is all
Unsatisfactory sympathies
Nonexpanding feelings
Subjugated world
Our goodbyes
Disillusioning
Deliberately binding generations
Of yet unconfined El Dorado
Desperately liking you
Worshipers of stars
Searchers of worlds
Living metaphors
I’m nothing but your damned dream of America
Dissolute enchantment
Unborn commuter through time
I trust you as much as I trust myself
Painful pleasures
Unwanted satisfaction
Memory
Soluble nostalgia
I’m the hemlock of your nonexistence
Belligerent body
Neither of peace nor war
Your non world
I Hate
In another realm of love.
Mi Cuerpo
Mi cuerpo
nace del cielo
Luz
Alimentado de sangre
Mi cuerpo es aire
Con sumo de limones
Mar
Con la sencillez del horizonte
Felizmente fugaz
Haciendo equilibrio con una uña
En el eje de la tierra
Desapareciendo en el azul
De su propia constelación
Mi cuerpo
Eclipse de luna
My Body
My body
Born of sky
Light
Fed by blood
My body is air
With a twist of lemon
Sea
With the simplicity of the horizon
Happily fleeting
Balanced on a fingernail
On the earth’s axis
Disappearing in the blue
Of its own constellation
My body
Eclipse of the moon
Daniel Flores y Ascencio is a painter, poet, and filmmaker. He was born in El Salvador and is presently living in the US where he is curating shows for Ouanday Center for the Arts. He is also working as Assistant to the Director, Roland Legiardi Laura, on Azul.
Related
Staging historical justice in Hernán Ronsino’s Glaxo
“A writer worried about reception is cooking a dead book. A writer’s job is to produce the best possible book in absolute freedom, so the category ‘acceptable’ does not play in the process at all.”
From the train I could look out onto the infinite blue of the sea. I was still exhausted, wakeful from the overnight transatlantic flight to Rome, but looking out at the sea, that Mediterranean sea that was so infinite and so blue, made me forget it all, even myself. I don’t know why.
Originally published in
BOMB 24,
Summer 1988
Richard Prince by Marvin Heiferman, Christian Lacroix, Sandra Bernhard by Gary Indiana, John Patrick Shanley, Gregor von Rezzori, Cristobal Balenciaga, and more.
