Freud’s theory of the dream
developed from a notion that the path of myth
stems from a psychic eruption of desire
buried in the darkroom
This is accessible only to poets
armed with the scalpels of visual poetry
A poem sketched with intuitive fidelity
to the principles of visual poetry
produces a landscape characterised by the hatred of the marvellous
In a conversation with a historian, Desnos,
or someone posing as Desnos, describes the landscape
characterised by the hatred of the marvellous, as a mask
found in the flea market
on the mask, there are trails & traces of brushstroke
In an extended view of the landscape of visual poetry
a bird is trapped in the transparent hand of a painter
when printed as a photograph
the bird is covered in silhouette
The hand is playing
caressing the soft beams of light
its potentiality is heightened by the surrounding aura
of the landscape characterised by the hatred of the marvellous
The landscape is peopled with creatures such as
leaf & stick insects.
A poet in a deserted street at night
curses monsters & insects lurking in the shadows as “bastards of the street of ill repute”
He curses painters who embraced the techniques of visual poetry
as art dissidents suspended in the void
He is unaware of the technique called “The Hand of God”
In the “The Hand of God,” a hand following Freudian dictates arranges a photograph of a landscape peopled with creatures such as
a bird, leaf & stick insects
on a mask found in the flea market
The bird is sitting next
to the head of the trunk-less woman
Somewhere, in a corner, Desnos or someone posing as Desnos,
discusses the image of a poet walking on a deserted street at night
without the support of bodily imagery, without recourse to myth,
without traces of visual poetry
thinking, in the landscape characterised by the hatred of the marvellous, poets are:
The lost children
Art dissidents
Visual poetry must not be antiseptic
Umar Abubakar Sidi, a naval helicopter pilot, is the author of The Poet of Dust.
READ ALSO: The Gangster Poets of Ajegunle by Umar Abubakar Sidi.