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LOSS 2017

In collaboration with London based poet Tamar Yoseloff. All text © Tamar Yoseloff 2017 all images and soundtrack © Bill Jackson 2017

Loss

Loss

Loss

Loss

Loss

Loss

Loss

(from East Wind Drawings Land And Sea)

written by Tamar Yoseloff

 

The artist waits until the dead hour, when his eyes 

yield to darkness. Only now can he draw, the burden 

of sight lifted. He rises from sleep, takes a nub of charcoal, 

firm and dry between his fingers, hears its churr against paper, 

digs a line into the coarse weave.

 

He wants to be nothing more 

than motion, not even a hand, something without source; 

he wants to make a mark that doesn’t resemble anything 

he knows, no word assigned to it. He wants to draw loss – 

like a gush of air released through a long unopened door, 

like the way night sucks shape and colour from the chair or rug, 

even though he knows they’re still here.

 

He can’t be certain; 

things are unmade in darkness. His body has vanished, 

just ticking organs, a funnel of breath. Walls melt away; 

the room opens to sky. Faith unravels like a ball of string.

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