With Jazz Fest in near full swing, art aficionados are scouting out the creative talents of New Orleans, and Coup is on the map! Chris Dennis's intriguing abstractions have been making lots of noise. And Lauren Capone's words accompany his imagery to turn the exhibit into a magnum opus.
Schwimmender Kopf (Swimming Head)
There are ghosts beneath these rocks
I’m turning
Surfaces I never anticipated.
On the body of a sunfish, algae
Blossoms in the place of scales.
Paint patterns pandemonium,
See how much accumulates?
Consider it a map. I label the parts:
Marbled slick, pointed cliffs,
The marsh, low-lying, where silhouettes
Branch gracefully; I note how little
Time it takes to despair.
The swell of pink spilt paint
Swallows me. It looks like this:
I am a jellyfish taken by the sea.
The spilt pink is it.
Hair trailing tentacles. I am
Spent charcoal and rust. I swim through
House paint and resin, navigating
Oil and Water. I
Buckle. I crack. I
Bleed.
Rise, phoenix; you are
The thing I find most precious—
Each of us, alone
What we are longing as one.
Look closely, an aggregate of purple-black
a blackberry makes.
Swim in my gritty sounds dirty.
It looks like this:
The blistered feet of ballerinas
a beautiful ballet make.
Submerged most of life
I am the bone of this song.
Watch, I can move in a sculling motion.
This head alone
Swallows the stuffiness,
Cracks like dry skin.
Lauren Capone
