Selections from ANOTHER BEGINNING
Sheila Squillante and Paul Bilger
Unreasonable Wind
wind’s all limbic
and belligerent
like spectral, relentless children
ganging on the playground
surrounding you
but stupidly
that was years ago
and farther still
bright filaments
blue spark and trail
diffuse under summer dark
the scorch and swell
Rests His Head against a Wall
rearranging in space, slow-turning
toward you
parade float,
festive reveler suspended,
rotating
the frame to fit his perception, expectation
you don’t know why or why
you need it
once more then
and, after, your whim sliding into
this glistening goldenrod headache
thuddish, frank and frontal
you’re completely exhausting, you know
Unmoored Road
inside the swollen mirror
milk act
ductile struggle
of both directions
outside untidy daylight overlaps
the slack grass
a paroxysm of antipathy
or waving apology
just leave it there leave it
inside a void offsets and mends
a void recovers
a void hastens toward your
bright taken rage
you include the road
its unbearable
relentless appeal
your empty body a contradiction
a pulsing pneumatic fog
They Waited, But Poorly
for the voice whispering fricatives, a line
or the small bones
of the inner ear--
ecstatic rupture of the drum and you
bleed all over the sheets. relief,
a saving vortex, droning yellow
that draws you down. encaustic,
enlarged. look
in
this feels like a painting,
like hands cupping clay, pulling
like insect light, furtive and elliptic
Paling Secrets
summer dark
diffuse, diaphanous
you reach through it
think of a field in flight
birds, insects
lifting faintly
from the waving grass
the world glows, is lit from within
some things, you learn,
make their own light
"These are not digital paintings. The images are all negatives of digital photographs with long exposure times. This makes the traces of light similar to a kind of dark ink, and the dark areas become light spaces. I would then apply global color adjustments to match the mood which I felt was at work in the images. Beyond cropping, I would constrain myself from any other editing technique. I would use specific optical situations, usually in natural settings, and move the camera to create the requisite streaking effects.
The images came first, and the poems were written in response, using the titles as a narrative entrance and grounding for the work."
