Letter to Michael Franks 1990

Dear Michael Franks,

I read an interview of you in the S.F. Chronicle Pink Section (22 July) by Lee Hildebrand, thus prompting me to write for two reasons: your musical based on Gauguin, and some tapes of yours I brought to Russia as part of a cultural arts exchange.

Aside from the natty problem of where to send this letter in the hopes that it will be forwarded to you, I too am deeply influenced by Gauguin—both his life and his work (as if they were inseperable).

 As an artist in residence, I often use his quote: “Who are we and where are we going? as a stimulus for beginning new work both with myself and my students. A little known fact is that Gauguin spent time in Peru which also influenced his work. I began a poem ages ago, and I later discovered his Peruvian roots when I traveled there in 1988. (See enclosed poem entitled “The White Horse.”) Are you familiar with this information on Gauguin? One of my sources was Eduardo Galiano.

I am sending you the poems because, long before I became a writer, I was housecleaning some rockstar’s home (I forget who, maybe someone with the Dead or Starship?) and listening to an obscure musician’s tape—one of the advantages of growing up in Marin in the ‘60s & ‘70s was the access to obscure music! And “Popsicle Toes” stuck in my brain a long time. I rarely buy music (one of my gripes as a writer is that musicians tend toward the banal in lyrics), but years later, I eventually bought “The Art of Tea.”

I am part of a poetry and art exchange with the Soviet Union, (I’ve been there twice) and I brought with me the work of many artists (kids and adults) in the Bay Area. I also brought as many tapes as I could carry, because there’s a great interest in American music in the USSR. Naturally, I brought what I liked, and it was interesting to watch my new aquaintences listen to our music the way a child tries a new food, cautiously. 

Your music was, after an appropriate time of testing, very much appreciated. It is very different to what they expect of US music. They’re uncertain about music not immediately recogniseable as a style. For example, the musicians I met preferred Dixieland over fusion jazz, yet ironicaly, they’re into the heavy metal of Motly Crue, and that of Genisis. (There’s a sort of MTV there, and even rock concerts are now broadcast.) 

But the music of the Beatles continues to live on in the USSR. It was like stepping into a 20-year time warp. We sang in the common language of music in the form of Beatles songs at numerous parties—often the only English many Soviets knew. And so, it was a pleasure to introduce your music to the Soviet artists, writers and musicians. 

I have no idea what will come of it, other than continued glasnost, and art exchanges, but I thought you’d like to know your music is now in the USSR. Are you familiar with the music of Aquarium?

While in the USSR, I saw many Gauguin paintings at the Pushkin and the Hermitage. Unfortunately, the paintings are dark and in need of cleaning, but to see them in the flesh, so to speak, was amazing. Especially “Are You Jealous?” and “Woman holding a Breadfruit.” There are nearly 20 paintings of his in the USSR. “La Orana Maria” (not in the USSR) is one of my favorite paintings.I look forward to hearing your Gauguin pieces.

Best,

Maureen Hurley

Intangible Take 2

I never wanted the plane to land, but the Andes rose like a white dream puncturing the sky. All the blue leaked into the eyes of mestizos. Time flowed backward, lined up like basureños in shacks along the Apurimac. Lined up like the locked eyes of death on several continents. The snake dancer from the selva cursed me. I was banished from the garden. The bridge at San Luis Rey failed me. The six-legged nightmare rode on the smoke. Ask me what this means, I can’t read your history written in the smoke of the victor. The garua fog hid our feet. A gorge divides water from water, brings it together again. Except the L.A. river. What leads us on? A child’s face buried in the moon’s path.

She stored apples under her bed. She said she was afraid of time. The teeth of graveyards. Riderless horses. Fear of Eden. Fear of the scent of money, fear of poverty. Fear of the telephone in the dead of night. I said I stayed in my dreams. Memorized floor patterns, but specific moments never came. The desire to return was embedded in the fear of fear. But I said there are many fears to choose from. Fear of not growing up. Fear of control. Of growing up and not being in control. Or of growing up and being in control. What if I ran away and no one stopped me? That moment of star-crossed thresholds. Not saying, Now I lay me down to sleep. Saying, I see my future as nothing, becoming nothing. The thrones of angels. Fish with the hearts of men. Each belabored breath blinded by the light, I opened my eyes. Looking forward, looking back. My dreams littered with scorpions. Descend with eyes open wide, like Beatrice.

Do you remember when we danced face-to-face? Your mouth opened into my darkness. We swam to the ceiling. You flew into the light, grew fins. We needed to rearrange definitions of speech, of the forgotten rain. Kiss me while the bones of humanity learn to sleep in doorways, and eyes learn not to see. They bathe in the streets where privacy is closest held, yet farthest away. To suckle memory. Whose tongue in my mouth? Por el loro, he said. Van Gogh’s sunflowers weren’t gold enough in the city of bankers. Raucous words flock to the trees like wild parrots. The computer is the 13th muse.

Fear of your thoughts. A code trickling down my thigh. What I ought to have said. Or, if I said too much. Fear of my thoughts. The audience dreaming of an audience dreaming. On bulkheads facing the sea, and in stairwells facing dark alleys, fear the semen trapped or not trapped in translucent orbs, a tangible sign on all the continents. The bridge becomes a flamenco skirt for the moon. Who wears the moon’s mask? The lover’s hand under the dress. No mermaid’s tail. When I said love, I got religious. Learned to walk, then crawl. Post-modern love deconstructing beneath city clocks without hands. Orgasm is closest to art. I didn’t mention syringes or T-cells.

What are we willing to accept? Kennedy shot again and again. And now this. Everything post-catastrophe. The TV channel-surfing in an empty room. Think of random blue noise as a way of life. Intangible instructions. When will blood learn to become stone? Was it better than anything, walking on the moon? Were we ever in the garden? One thing is certain: Night is neither noble nor sacred; her indifferent legs are open wide.

See also

© 2002 Maureen Hurley

THE SAVAGE DREAM

THE SAVAGE DREAM

Gauguin imagines his own corpse devoured by ants.

He carries arsenic in a Peruvian olla up to the mountains.

When suicide fails, cursing God, he returns to painting

the myth of abundance, the golden tropics without a shadow

on the horizon. Te oviri rerioa. The savage dream.

He writes: your work can never be too luminous.

Let everything you do breathe. I'm hard at work.

I am entering into truth, into nature.

Civilization has fallen from me little by little.

I know the odor of the soil.

The concept wells up like a volcano blossoming

strong, hard and pungent, a tapestry of color.

Here, poetry emerges spontaneously.

There are no more refuges to flee to.

The imagination of a lonely man

has devoured his hope with dreams.

Strange white birds eat lizards—

the uselessness of this life.

2/14/89

OUT TAKES/COLLAGE Galapagos, Gauguin

OUT TAKES/COLLAGE  

In the Galapagos, evolutionary myths
crawled out of the precambrian mind of the sea.
Birds proclaim unchartered territories.
A certain slant of sunlight grows wings.
I listen to translations of wind in the trees
and turn stones over and over,
trying to fathom below the surface.
If only we could move freely among molecules—
no separation between stone, water and air.

Civilization falls from me little by little.
I know the odor of the soil.
Gauguin said, Let everything you do breathe. 
I'm hard at work;
entering into truth, into nature.
I go deeper into the idea of word,
primal soup, blue-green algae,
the first "I am" the world uttered.
Long after we've gone, life will continue;
another blastopore, in all its variations, germinating.
The moon is made of basalt like the sea floor.
Here, poetry emerges spontaneously.
Here there are no more refuges to flee to.
We are standing on ceremonial ground.
A wobbly prayer lifts up, takes flight
across the valley.  

date?  2/89?

RIDERS IN THE JUNGLE

RIDERS IN THE JUNGLE

  — after a painting by Gauguin, The White Horse 

By the stream of white irises,

a green bird watches a riderless white horse 

thrust his nose into the indigo water.

Splinters of sunlight flash up 

like slim birds from a fresh-cut orange. 

The man on the roan horse looks over his shoulder 

thinking he heard something fall into the water.

His friend strokes his horse's brown neck

and both horses paw grass tufts into the water

uncertain of what lies ahead.  

 2/22/85
after a CPITS class with Duane BigEagle

see Savage Dream
The White Horse

first draft

The man on the roan horse 
looks over his shoulder 
thinking he heard something 
fall into the water.
By the stream of white irises 
a green bird watches 
a riderless white horse 
thrust his nose 
into the indigo water. 
Splinters of sunlight 
flash up like slim birds 
from a fresh-cut orange. 
He strokes his horse's brown neck 
as it paws the water, uncertain 
of what lies ahead.  

 2/22/1985

The White Horse (the savage dream/riders in the jungle) no efile

no efile

RIDERS IN THE JUNGLE    

after a painting by Gauguin,

The White Horse  

By the stream of white irises,

a green bird watches a riderless white horse

thrust his nose into the indigo water.

Splinters of sunlight flash up 

(like slim birds from a fresh-cut orange.

The man on the roan horse 

looks over his shoulder 

thinking he heard something fall into the water. 

His friend strokes his horse's brown neck 

and both horses paw grass tufts into the water.

uncertain of what lies ahead.             

2/85

See The Savage Dream  filed as 2/1989; it may be older

don't know the date of expanded version, below. It was in my 1989 folder, but that's when I filed Savage Dream.