Know how it feels?

Patsy123 sent me this poem, though I can't quite recall when:

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even
forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Billy Collins

At last: Hopper.

I can see I'm in danger of letting the Hopper show get away from me. It already seems to be slipping into the occluded canyons of my mind (....in the drawer marked shirts).

And what can I say about it that will satisfy not only myself but my devoted reader (Hi, Marja-Leena!)?

It was everything I hoped it would be, even with the omission of favourite pictures like New York Movie or House by the Railroad.

Or indeed, Chop Suey. Remembering this picture of two women in cloche hats sitting in a restaurant, outside of which is a huge sign showing part of the word "SUEY," suddenly brought back to me the memory of having seen the last Hopper retrospective at the Hayward in 1981. How could I have forgotten? What's wrong with my memory? I had a poster from that show, depicting Chop Suey, on the wall of the attic at my previous house for years, for god's sake!

Ah well, this one won't get away so easily.

Going round this exhibition was a lot like visiting old friends, although there were a couple I didn't recognise, and it was a real pleasure sharing views with Patsy123. I was particularly struck with how clean and modern the paintings looked, mainly, I suppose as a result of Hopper's paring away of detail.

But most of all I came away with an impression of paintings of people disconnected, nobody talking to anyone else, everyone looking in different directions. And his choice of composition often gave the feeling that the main protagonists were looking at something important out of the picture that we could not be party to.

Is that woman looking at something beyond the tree line, or inwardly cursing the tree line for keeping the world from her? What has the dog seen to the left of the picture that prevents it from looking at its master who calls it, while the woman looks in upon her own thoughts? What kind of light is it that bathes the man sweeping his yard in a Pennsylvania coal town?

Overall, a sense of mystery.

NIGHT WINDOWS 1928

A window gaping wide
Exhales the heavy city heat.
Curtains move seductively
To embrace the cool, crisp night air.
Darkness of stone without,
Makes a frame for an enticing glimpse
Of life within a lighted window.

Illuminated,
A woman, unknowing,
Offers her proud, red robed rear
As she bends tending what? why?
Offers a brief flash of her life.
Bids me welcome, draws me in,
But answers nothing, shuts me out.
Within the room
Shapes, shades, shadows, inconclusive, tease,
They are hers to know. Intimate, familiar,
Mine only to conjecture, ungraspable,
A mystery.

(Patsy123 - July 2004)