Author: Victor Joyet
I.
I am the end of everyone the last man
It doesn’t matter if it now comes to an
end It’s good for everyone to be dead
sometimes good to be alive again
I will dance on the wire and people will
be amazed I’ll crosswalk the air and the
light dance on the wire until I die and
dance on the wire one more time
I shall smoke the last cigarette
butt inhale the last breath of poison
look around the hexagram of the heaven
close my eyes and let the sun shine red
behind
one last time
II.
Nonday morning
Smoke on the verge of eternity
Alone in
the dead-end street world
Every day and every year the same stuff on TV
The Internet is choke-full of brags and misery
And I just don’t care
I don’t wanna spend the night on air
Ruminating that avant-garde cinema dream
I keep thinking there is
no music on a dead plane
“I used to blackmail the night just to get some
sleep” was what you used to say
But you ended up talking to yourself
III.
Words to be thought words to be said words
to be sung and words to whisper God’s
language is still to be found fashioned and
heard down there on Earth down there on the
ground there is no church and no temple down
there on Earth down there on the ground
bone machines and articulated minds
mortal spirits without any idea of time
Down there on Earth down there on the ground
for the first time shall I tread
Crossing my arms I’m facing the man
This is the only prayer I mean to utter
This’ll be the only time
I look into your eyes
IV.
I used to walk around so much I used to go
nowhere at all I grew aimless and shameless
Soared over the ocean and through the rain
My senses sharpened the distance between
the world and my eye narrowed seeing and
being became one single gesture and losing
my gaze into the above skyway whenever I
saw a star I’d wonder if it were dead or alive
I’d wandered and wandered got so stinky and
so filthy and so soiled that when I looked into
the mirror I saw a man I’d never seen in me
Lost absorbed life-washed
That was just another me
I didn’t know then but I’d started anew
V.
As open skies we moved………………………...
From a wing to another…………………………..
Skull and limbs all exposed…………………….
We needed nothing………………………………...
Bareheaded and free……………………………...
…We needed nothing……………………………...
…Toward eternity…………………………………....
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VI.
Behold the fireflies of the mind in pieces all the
colors of thoughts in motion across the scenery
of the allegorical meaning of yourself the crazy
geography of heaven’s truthful sin
These are roads painted on the canals of your
vanishing body the idle image of a world gone
mad roads that’ll take you into your own country
where seasons and hours are landscaped into the
mirror of your self
Now the silence will shatter
from the sounds inside your brain this is the birth
of the eighth day
Thusness widespread on the
planispheric memory of a day forever forgotten
VII.
When will I be taken away? How will I be taken
away from it all? What for a manner is to draw
someone away like that from their friends family
cats books clothes and whatsoever that holds
together the pieces of one’s very own private self
without any warning just like that gone as a dart
through the classroom of time?
Suddenly I feel so afraid when I think of death
22 only yet I feel so old when surreptitiously
I grow conscious of my own mortality
22 still alive When will I trespass? When will I
meet my other self? 22 still alive thinking of my
friends wondering who’ll be the first one to die
the first we’ll have to cry our hearts out for
Editor’s Note: Associated Artwork
Below you may find a list of artwork which this piece’s author associated with each sonnet. As some were protected under copyright, they were not included directly on this page. However, you may refer to the following links as you read the sonnets:
I.
Mark Rothko, Orange and Yellow, 1956, 232.4 x 181.3 cm, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York: Orange and Yellow, 1956 – Mark Rothko – WikiArt.org
II.
Franz Kline, Suspended, 1953, USA: Suspended, 1953 – Franz Kline – WikiArt.org
III.
Mark Rothko, Light over Deep, 1956, 139.7 x 111.8 cm, Collection of Rita and Toby Schreiber: Light over Deep 1956 Painting By Mark Rothko – Reproduction Gallery (reproduction-gallery.com)
IV.
Gerhard Richter, Cage 2, 2006, 300 x 300 cm: Gerhard Richter: Cage Paintings, 541 West 24th Street, New York, April 19–June 26, 2021 | Gagosian
V.
Yves Klein, Monogold (MG 18), 1961, 77.9 x 56 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany: Œuvres – Monogold sans titre – Yves Klein
VI.
Franz Kline, King Oliver, 1958, 251.4 x 196.8 cm, private owner: Franz Kline (1910-1962) (christies.com)
VII.
Mark Rothko, UNTITLED, 1963: 5a2007bf2e81a47f8657e4ec7f94b164_large.jpg (1500×1500) (touchofmodern.com)
