Meditation on Klamen

This is not a river. This is not a vase.
This is not a tablecloth slapping gravity
in the face. This is not. This is not. This is: so

what? A fictive frame, accused by eye police? Slow
down your pointing. There are no points in time, only
flow, and the slow bleed of light into dark and dark

into dark, or dawn, or bright, or bright eggs hatching
ideas tumbling down stairs. Every landscape reads
like a dispatch from the front: We’ve got abstraction

in pincer. Stop. Advance scout reports tomorrow
horizon is ours. Stop. Intelligence confirms
nothing. Stop. Borrow beg steal trade quote transfer. Stop.

And from the back? A learned elbow in the ribs
empties meaning’s plates and scans the barcode potlatch
for tricks–the fib of the Wow. Get past Wow. And then:

Every varnished sheath, a smoked mirror vanquishing
expectation. Every still picture, a portrait
of the ravished viewer, thinking, attempting thought.

published in the exhibition catalogue accompanying “David Klamen_Haines Gallery – San Francisco” June 8 – July 15, 2000