Portrait and a Dream: A Dialogue

                                                            Jackson Pollock, 1953 

 

Introduction

On the right side a head,

big as a person—

one white eye not staring but fixed

without effort on a spot

at the back and left of where the artist

hovered. The eye hangs

in a mass of red, grey, and yellow,

face like a hurricane, vortex nose

 

holding together the swirl that stops

where white space separates

the dream-half of the painting—

classic splatters of black

like a Rorschach test, asymmetrical, open

to interpretation—butterfly wings tilted,

loosely rendered breasts, black mass

like a giant pupil—

 

But which side is which?

Recognizable face that without volition

draws viewers in (they always walk

to the right side first), the white

eye, its postured knowing—

or the messy left, phantom figures—

armadillo head, tiny field of sunflowers—

or are both the portrait and the dream?

 

And how to explain the eye, a scribble

like any other gesture,

peering out of the chaos

of its own creation, sad, I would say,

to be looked at, unable to look back,

embedded in that whirlwind forever,

to remember only the artist, the great head

suspended over the world,

 

and to miss his shoulder,

its familiar angles and curves,

the heavy black rain of paint

and the corner of studio beyond

his careful, flying arm, where everything stood still:

wood planks, window filled

with green, where even the sun stood still,

where the world promised to be.

 

 

Portrait:

I remember being thrown

into the white,

nothing to compare it to,

 

no metaphors, except I could say

I flow like mud—I know about mud

from a puddle outside the studio window,

 

the chunky mud soaking water up—

only can guess where I came from:

I think it was his eyes (he has two,

 

I one), his like two trees,

mine all white, part of it left out

(how is it possible—what I’m not

 

defines what I am; what I’m not

is what makes me see),

his eyes darting like a bird

 

from branch to branch,

my one white hole of an eye

(how quickly he made it—

 

steady circle curving into being,

it felt like opening, opening),

his great, brown eyes—

 

what I know of womb—

two black holes, my opposite,

my father.

 

 

Artist:

I wanted to love you,

shithole of a head,

but I didn’t plan

to have you.

 

Of course it was that stupid eye

that started the whole thing.

Sure my hand was steady,

full of purpose and intention

 

and all that crap.

But, I hate to break it to you,

I wasn’t thinking “eye” or “face.”

What was I thinking?

 

God, how sweet this little curve is,

how the brush slides slick and sure

like my hand moving on its own.

I kept thinking: this isn’t right,

 

outward, outward from the wrist,

but in, in I had to go

to finish the horrible circle

that when finished—I swear I nearly fell over—

 

stared back at me like a fucking puppy.

At that moment I knew I would destroy you,

spiral your bright sunken empty

wretched goddamn pathetic pleading

 

excuse for an eye

out of existence—no one

would ever know—I’d hide you

under fabulous swirls of distracting color

 

till you were just paint, not sentient at all.

Of course I didn’t hide you.

God, how that thing looked at me,

like it knew something.

 

You wanted something from me.

I kept painting around you,

had to leave that white space there

like a place holder,

 

like I’d fill it in later.

It was so open it hurt.

It made me hate you

and want to destroy the whole thing

 

and then freaking sympathize with you.

The colors didn’t make any sense of it,

just added layers

around the thing I couldn’t understand.

 

 

Portrait:

You mean the dream?

I wonder if I’m the dream,

the less real part?

 

I don’t feel very real.

I don’t know what real is supposed to feel like.

I feel grained into the canvas,

 

stuck, embedded.

Glued to its bumps, its minuscule ridges.

I don’t know, do you feel that way?

 

I watch you out in the air that looks wide

and tremendously free, you seem to be the only thing

not stuck. The tree is stuck to the ground, the sun to the sky.

 

But you run, arms and paint everywhere, all your worlds

dangling around the studio. You are the only thing

not stuck. Maybe you’re the dream.

 

 

Artist:

Quit fucking with me.

I’m the dream. Right.

This coming from a freaking head in a painting.

What makes you so smart?

Where are my fucking cigarettes?

 

I bet the head took them.

 

What am I talking about?

The head says I’m the dream.

Hey, I made you, I could have turned you into a damn horse.

It’s all a dream. You, the rest of it,

just a damn picture, nothing real gets in.

 

Just a damn picture.

 

 

 

The Dream

 

a nightmare forming shoulder hunch leaf curl black and black the eye with wings the speaking line curve curve and come right back and go back out this is saying with the wrist fingers tight pressed together sending out and out the black the stomach lining brain grating watch me how I always seem to move and you can say what you see you can read my lines read where I fall thickly where I barely touch you cannot touch you are the one dreaming I am the one real thing for now and this is safe stay with me the flower the dog’s head these are the things you know that one’s body black like all the rest the seamless line the one black line that cuts through the world that passes out of here into yours is true

 

 

Portrait:

I remember what it felt like to become dry on the canvas,

the trickle of sinking into it.

Maybe it’s like how you feel growing older.

 

I remember all the days it took to dry,

how my surface itched and cracked,

and the still liquid inner layer bubbled underneath

 

like a kind of hunger.

I remember even earlier—the first leap

from can to canvas, the fall from brush,

 

the shock of taking shape, of melting

into what would become my world,

my only world.

 

I think you’re lucky, Jack, can I call you that?

You may have problems, but you also have legs,

you can walk away from your thoughts.

 

Why did you keep me? One eye

and not even a pupil,

what does that say about an artist?

 

 

Artist:

I don’t like spelling things out for people,

but I’ll tell you something,

cause I like you, fucking head.

 

When I made the circle that wasn’t an eye

just yet, I told you before,

it was so open it hurt.

 

I stared at that white space

like I had never seen white space before

and I swear it felt like the opposite

 

of every fear I ever had.

Yes, afterward,

I considered putting in a pupil,

 

when I realized this might become an eye,

a face, but it was like I could see more

without the pupil, like that white space

 

was infinity and I could see forever

and that’s how I felt when I was painting

all the time it felt like forever like I was on top of it

 

making infinity happen which is not the same

as seeing the world and painting it, not the same

as being in the world at all.

 

Portrait:

What is it like to be in the world?

I know the endless-seeing-into-infinity thing

makes you happy

 

but let me tell you something,

all I ever do is see.

Open, open, open,

 

if I could just blink!

I don’t get any breaks.

Forever. Think about it.

 

It’s one thing to see forever,

but to be in it, and to have to watch

all those people who get to leave the museum,

 

have a cup of coffee, drive home,

go to sleep,

and see morning happen …

 

 

Artist:

Here’s what I promise:

It’s going to be there when you look,

the world. You are in it.

 

Even though it feels like you’re hanging out

on a wall somewhere, you’re part

of the things and the people you see moving around

 

it just feels like sometimes you’re the only thing

not moving when actually you’re moving

in them and changing with them

 

and you’re real and I’m real thanks to you.

It’s hard for me to live when I’m not trying

to find something out the way I tried with you.

 

I think death is forgetting there’s a puzzle to solve.

I forget sometimes. But you hold it

at the tips of your black fingers forever.

 

Don’t be jealous of us who pretend to know everything.

You have no idea

how perfect you are.

 

Legs and arms? Overrated.

Mystery held.

That’s where it’s at.

 

Hold, Jack.

Hold.