It came to me in a dream.
After a typical First Thursday artwalk in Pioneer Square, I was waiting for the bus at a notoriously seedy intersection in downtown Seattle, when approached by a young black man. My first reaction was, I’m afraid, “Go away, I don’t have any change”. But the young man replied, “May I read you this poem?” And he produced a quite large (25″ x 40″) piece of beat-up mat board, on which he’d written a youthful poem.
Of main interest to me, however, was the image he’d drawn. Sharpie pen on mat board, with blue ballpoint-pen highlights.
“I had a dream about a bird emerging from my head, and a ship sailing into the distance.” And before I could ask him further about the details, my bus arrived. He introduced himself as Vladimir, and I gave him the $20 he asked for his drawing and left.
The drawing features a young man’s face. On his forehead is a Third Eye, a wound or vaginal opening; a bird’s head emerges from the crown of his head, as if taking flight. The bird’s ribbed beak is producing a thunderbolt – or a crack in space – which strikes the top of a lighthouse. At the foot of the lighthouse, people come and go, entering and leaving. The lighthouse stands above a sea, upon which sails a large ship withthe caption “The Crystal Ship of the Black Pearl, Mind of the Santa Maria”. The ship’s portholes look like keyholes. In the sea below the lighthouse is a woman’s face, with a third eye similar to the man’s. The sea merges into the man’s shoulders; his goatee flows into a woman’s hair and face, which in turn seems to emerge from the smoke from a burning, winged, bleeding Sacred Heart. On the left side of the image is a sphynx-like head with a halo; above the head is a tiny Star of David, and above the star is a hand which seems to be firing a gun (?) toward the moon.
I don’t know anything about Vladimir, except that his manner was sensitive and introverted; wearing a ragged black trenchcoat, I couldn’t tell what his situation was, but he had a wild unkempt goatee and a bruise on his cheek. So far as I could tell, he was certainly encumbered by neither college art school education nor the attendant inflated ego. What his drawing lacks in refinement it more than exceeds in raw talent and vision.
Text of the poem after the jump.
The poem reads:
Life is one and not A fin of Magical Moments We captivate Together in the endless Lights and with a good eye, the Root of the original Sin. Nothing we Couldn't talk about, lambs and lions, liars and Priests... Nothing so impossible to Achieve When it has it own wheel, its own future Catching up with our footprints Paranormally, the Surrenderer and the Contenteress Smile at their tears in the mirror. It came to be for them that a home is where they cannot go, for they've always been elsewhere in their minds beside the ground that kisses their feet. Dope, of its proper use chains the pain to my veins, Tearing holes to say why Jesus loves. A supernatural Touch of Kindness, envies the evil of God, nurtures the breaths that give life Jewels and Bring us Truth for the Boat To Carry the Bird when those wings get Tired in the wind of justice and Love. -Vlad.
April 8th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Whoa…I have to take a closer look at that thing!