PINK TELEPHONE

 



PINK TELEPHONE


There were six telephones. There were a hundred telephones. There were fifty-seven telephones. They were all the same telephone, pink and ringing. The woods were filled with telephones and they were ringing. Should I answer? Should I answer one telephone or all of them? These telephones that were made of flesh and that called me. How far can a voice travel? What is the greatest distance between humans? What can be said from so far? What can be whispered from nearby? But who is calling? A tree, the earth, those who have gone, the pizza delivery place confirming the colour of olives? Friend, lover, my grief. Has time itself got on the horn to remind me, or memory, a priest, my mother? What is it to be in a forest ringing? I walk. I sing. I sleep. I remember the phone numbers of my childhood, the imagined numbers of constellations and celebrities, that after you dialed, you heard another world, a veiled world, hissing like the sea.

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Delighted that Elee Kraljii Gardiner and I have this piece published in the latest issue of The Goose (edited by Ariel Gordon and Tanis MacDonald.) Elee placed this old pink telephone in various places in the woods near her home in Vancouver and took this haunting photographs. I made the images into the video and added music and text speaking to Elee's images. This is part of an ongoing larger project that we're doing, writing texts together, as well as a variety of real-world and multimedia aspects. Our chapbook (with multimedia) WATCHER  was published by Timglaset Editions (Malmo, Sweden.) We have some exhibitions scheduled as well as other work at large (for example in Miracle Monocle.

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I've had a discussion with several musicians, artists, & writers about their desire to create work that isn't negative or "ugly," but somehow reframes the discussion while still interrogating or being aware of the issues, the complications. Not to create some kind of soma, but trying to think towards creating a resistant affirmation. Anyone else having these discussions or thoughts?

Comments

Claire said…
This is the poem I've had in my head for decades, and you wrote it perfectly! I am so happy that it exists in the world!
gary barwin said…
Thank you, Claire!