Birth

1.

In the beginning,

born out of the emptiness

of dust and red dirt ,

Kukaniloku appears at 4AM

like an oasis

reinforced through the reverence

of royal births for centuries

the energy of extreme duress

focused and juxtaposed

to the serenity of natural forms.

Breathing in and out

of a circular grove,

the nocturnal breeze

animates the eucalyptus trees

as it always has.

Bearing witness

to what remains conduit,

initiating internally,

the way scent

is directly linked to memory .

The tingling of the fingers,

as it feels for release,

pushing hands with the silence.

The sequence of stones,

smooth and inanimate,

rise from verdant fields.

A woman’s profile,

in the latest stage of hapai,

her dark ridges swollen on the horizon

soon giving birth to the sky.

Deep within the

island’s center,

far from our gaze

comes the cries of strays

feral cats, wandering roosters

those sheltering under tent flaps

sound off and give way

as the last gasp of night

turns into day.

2.

In the recesses of

disassembled words,

from out of the rubble

where art is born

and trauma is transformed,

comes the point of release,

and the gradual changes,

no longer fully dark

but understood by degrees.

In the east

light fills in the cracks

like a paint that is applied

to father sky’s canvas,

the first rays of insight.

From the understaining

comes a vision, manifesting in

patchwork images and plucked lichen

that through the sea mist

stressed photosynthesis

changes color

on maritime gravestones.

It textures the illumination

beneath track lights and

on subterranean walls

the picture becomes clearer ;

a verdant field, a pastoral scene

as you step away.

3.

The Cape

was on the edge of

the distant past.

Absorbed in the fog,

disappearing into the landscape

of wood and bog

wandering like a coyote

past Chatham light at dawn.

Beyond the last clapboard cottage,

our eyes meet

as they did across the fire

in the earthen structure of the Wetu.

Wooden benches

facing each other

and in that space you imagine

all that came before, those

surviving in the face of nature.

There was no separation,

until one day we’re scattered

and the gatherings fewer.

Greater is the distance traveled

to celebrate birthdays and origins,

a mother a grandmother,

the sun which warms us

and from whom all have grown

to appreciate each passing moment.

Each time the light is

a deeper hue of gold

as it begins its descent through windows

until absorbed into the sea

and in our eyes

verdant fields grow darker

and this cycle replenishes endlessly

the sense of collective identity

on the edges and in the spaces

where most things

begin and end.

Bottom image is the painting entitled “Ispica 6” by Dominick Takis Sr.

acrylic oil lichen sprayfoam branch media in silicone caulking on canvas.

To view more of his art please refer to this website:

https://dominicktakis.com/

A Voice No Longer Attached

From the last breath come ripples.

A sad death by one’s own desperate choice,

does nothing to silence the voice

still reverberating in waves

through the collective consciousness.

Its infinite octaves

are still peeling sound from space,

re-entering on a spinning plate

to be absorbed through every fibre.

It contains your own painful journey

and the light from its galaxy can guide

the thoughts that do not run aground

but drift through your mind

like ghost ships of sound.

It softened the night,

only a footnote for its continuation

that could not be measured.

All the change contained in one voice,

The obscure mist-like breath

that covers the moon,

the bells ringing in the day.

With a scale that makes oceans out of rain,

you drew light over silken surfaces,

searching for something in vain

through depths we could never quite fathom.

A voice no longer attached,

like a shattered glass that knows no ceiling

but stealing shards from the sky,

a divine ballroom

collapsed in liquid edges,

suggesting it is more fluid than material.

It returns to the elemental,

the crackling of fire

the far off laughter in a trickster wind

disappearing around a bend.

There was a submission,

after grappling so long with misery,

You slipped to the deep end.

Strung out like clouds along the ridge line,

it was the peaks that pierce you.

The slight crack in a soaring falsetto,

an uninterrupted echo

in the forest, accomplice to what’s hidden in dense brush.

Like the sudden illumination of a spider’s web,

delicate as a vision,

it’s the sudden realization

that we were attached to something fleeting.

How quickly it shifts,

like the switch of the rails.

Metal on metal

fingers across chalk

scraping at the spine

with tingling waves until silenced,

until resigned to the rafters of empty halls.

Now stripped of all pretense,

this tree of its leaves,

with notes falling brilliantly

like flickers of flame

on the surfaces of streams.

It remains vagrant in the subconscious,

like the purpose of dreams,

until at last you align

and drop needles

into the waiting grooves of dark circles

spinning, illuminating

a craft that was always at the point of collapse.

 

In Memory of Chris Cornell

 

The Essence knew no Boundary

The essence knew no boundary

over great tracts of wilderness,

in the abrupt descent into the sea.

Through uninterrupted spaces,

the spirit is as evident

as the grass it passes through.

Akin to a last breath expanding outwards,

seeking a landing,

somewhere to rest its laurel leaves

with lines of light

that guide through the night,

like the lanterns of Santa Marta,

all the runaway stars

that slip through the sky to the playa,

a culmination of sparks from a dual bonfire.

Passing between flames,

we were no longer the same but altered forever.

Candles capture our image

while smoke lifts us ascendant,

etched in the moon’s white visage,

we’re stark black and in tatters,

crisscrossing footprints, overlapping shadows.

Love and loss lean on each other

until they become one in the same

mournful song of nocturnal birds taking wing,

soon settling into everything;

a scent, a fabric,

the fragments in nature that form a picture

outside of any frame, it’s nothing we can name,

that which knows no boundary.

Entrenched in the heart,

the feeling swells into a soaring crescendo,

breaking chains of attachment, Bowie’s “Heroes”

communicating directly with something immaterial.

If the spirit was a wind,

it would be as wild and wayward as these trades,

ragged from journeys, seaborne and saved.

We would get a sense of it through its impact on the waves,

in the patterns in the sand it creates.

Relating to spirit it stands

seedless yet rooted,

following the oldest  of forms,

connecting practitioners with those who passed

a half a century before.

There is a subtle stirring in these movements,

a newer manifestation of an ancient art

which is once again a communication.

 

In the next chapter, after everyone goes home,

we’ll tend to the alters.

The ash of insense and dead petals will be swept.

The salvaged portrait polished

until we find time for reflection.

The gaze in the photograph

attaches a steady line to our own memory,

like a charcoal tracing over the spaces between meaning,

in a search that is never wavering,

we can come to an understanding

that between death and life

some things endure.

 

For Uncle Joe McCauley

I think of you often

 

 

 

 

 

 

Light Seeps through the Illusion

Through what I’d perceive in the sky’s mirror,

the sea was a ragged mariner

cast on the jagged rocks.

All the debris i would carry with me from the past,

the horizon could no longer forecast

or keep from floating away

from some logical ideal.

The line was a separation,

sea and sky

silky and undefined,

an impenetrable teardrop,

weightless,  impression of color

in a superstitious and darkened course.

With no compass it flows over the sides of the canvass,

like an art that is infinite in its reading,

it depends on the witness.

For all who need to wander and father words,

further imagination, the borders are reinforced

than blurred by travel.

The intuitively known is murdered in bloody sunsets,

red robed in the glow of twilight

thrown across the liquid’s edge,

like a veil from the eyes

the westernmost ledge is

illuminated.

From there it is one step

inward to perfect

or join the drowned by shipwreck.

All the blind and rudderless,

with their mangled craft lodged in the sand

like a sullen crop half buried

in the perennial mystery upon which we stand.

It is a precarious position

when a landscape of fear

offers no sanctuary from

being pulled into a perpetual wasteland.

Not many know the history

beneath a city.

Soiled reflections stare back

from clean facades of steel and glass,

vast monuments of shadow

creating the illusion

that no sweat and blood were shed

during development’s colossal intrusion.

There are moments you see it clearly

as a shaft of light whose

passage holds a thread of jewels,

a glittering sequin to the narrative

where the brightest of all, the moon

becomes a beacon in the darkest canopy

to see me through.

Symbiosis

.

DOMINICK TAKIS:  Symbiosis:  Sicilian, Irish and Other Travel Interpretations with Lichen

Symbiosis:  A close prolonged association between two or more different organisms of different species that may benefit each member. 

When I began to incorporate lichen onto my surfaces as a weight and balance for composition, I was mostly interested in it’s textures and patterns.  Lichen has an ancient and weathered look; it makes me think of civilizations that revered the circle as a symbol of the connection between the harmony of nature and the cosmos. The patterns of the lichen appeared on man-made Dolmens and portal tombs as well as naturally on stone. 

I began to read more about lichen and it’s symbiotic relationship to algae; how they create their own existence, yet are attached.  I found parallels in my own life; the distance that comes from independence, yet still remaining attached to my ancestors and culture. An outcropping of land, a farmhouse, a church or a graveyard may take on greater significance when it contains some familial connection.  This became apparent when traveling through my ancestral Sicily and in my wife’s native Ireland.  Whether drawing inspiration from the Cathedral mosaics in Monreale or through the neolithic stone of Drombeg, this work resonates with a desire to come full circle.  What began as physically traveling back to the land, has left an impression, influencing my work’s narrative.  Whether figuratively or intellectually, I have recognized this symbiotic relationship with my ancestors and culture and how it informs my art.

I recently collaborated with my father (who is a painter and mixed media artist) on this statement for his most recent work that will be shown in the Galatea Gallery in Boston during the month of June 2015

The Opening reception is 6-8Pm on Friday June 5th,  feel free to stop by if you are in the area.

Galatea Gallery   http://galateafineart.com/

Address: 460 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02118

Phone:(617) 542-1500

The Clouds Hold the Past

1.

From a hidden source

somewhere in the mountains

clouds burst forth

as if fed with fire.

A series of slow glowing embers,

supple the clay mutations

that render fully formed figures

connected by luminous wire

and hung from a window’s edge

unveiled in transparent attire

that catches the light

before it strikes the abyss

and is undressed there forever.

2.

The artist conveys the unconscious

visibly in the sky’s mirror

shifting imprints on a wet sidewalk

where dreams stalk the waking

and interpretation is ever-changing

on an ink blot palette.

When a mouth of cloud gapes

to consume the half moon,

there will be one fibrous fingernail

scratching against the darkness,

a sharp talon piercing the mass

while light escapes through the cracks.

Nothing is static nor remains for long

on this borderless screen,

tragic scenes from the past

are replayed on this landscape of glass,

coils of inner state recreate the loop

and you’re held in thrall

while contorted images crawl past,

even here sorrow can find you.

3.

Sifting between the wavering bristles of Cook pine

casting shadows on the rock wall’s sacred design.

Curiosity steals a glance

until pursued through the cloud’s expanse,

seeking refuge, a silky balm

to move across the calm dimensions

and into the waiting arms of the sea.

Disappearing into India ink

like memories set to sink into insignificance,

those fleeting moments disintegrate

into roseate plates

that were the scales of some exquisite snake,

shaking free from the coils,

the clouds now steady

floating feathers in an offering of serenity,

a balancing act over the buoyant sea,

an older me, isolated yet integrated,

our history is one in the same.

Maneuverings

A channeling of energy
wind reduced to a simple maneuvering
stream over stone
murmuring
mist over peaks
how the spirit leaks into consciousness
a lush canopied recess
senses drunk on a chorus of Thrush
temporal glimpses of light
festooned on the branches
luminescent
beneath the surface thread
a dream flickering
while art is fed through
this transparent spool
filling the vacancy
all that is required of synchronicity
to fit the edges into a discernible pattern.

Beyond haphazard vanity
there is something outside of me
maneuvering switchbacks
steeped in obscurity
sweat on the brow searching for this purity
but thirsty
creatively empty
a written rehearsal
an elegy
for a muse
hot on the heels
of her truancy
a runaway wandering
leaves me wondering
will our highways connect?
Will they reflect in glacial lakes?
On the road to the sun
these continents divide
while memories reside
like skid marks
on a scarred blacktop.

By boot or by car
passing scenes chart the uncertainty.
Akin to being adrift on a choppy sea
a bobbing figure drawn overboard
barely buoyant
against the recurring dark
currents of thought
that do not stop at the edge
but blur the boundary instead.
Here at the end
considering those long ago dead
they’ll trespass again.
Moonlight drives its keys over the Pali
a bright fleeing to the shadows of trees
ancient struggles maneuver through valleys
materialize
out of the corner of the eyes
on paths wound around stream and fall
as the lunar calendar would allow
a disembodied conch to sound
for that transparent crowd
to march down hillsides
to the rise of the drums
under the guise of clouds
they’ll meet the dawn
with dark streaks from torches drawn
against the western sky
not yet awakened
that glimmer in the mind’s eye
where the imagination maneuvers
through a parallel universe.

What is Completed?

The interpretation of art,

like a rebirth of thought.

Each new piece regenerates

all that came before it.

It venerates the ancestor

of no definitive answer,

instead coloring and giving birth

to an infinite texture.

Contours you’ll resume

by tracing this womb throughout.

It begins by lightly brushing the surface,

as graceful as a lizard’s limbs

over the coarse skin of tree bark.

The canvass stretched taut,

silent and thin as a moth’s wings

deafening when you’re listening

to a certain frequency of rain,

it resonates like a train of thought,

seismic as a teardrop in a pool,

radiating in myriad directions.

Each stroke is an impression,

passing over the surface like an apparition,

tuned into the unseen,

its lingering reception recalling

all those things that stay with you.

Each step is an embryo

for new material to come through

the subconscious,

no longer dormant

but with a slow flow

as if emerging from a volcano,

the vaporous past absorbed into the current,

transformed from within,

to be reborn as new land

calling into question

as you perceive from the edge

“What is ever fully completed?”

A Message. A Mirage.

We met at the crossroads,

a desert wayside

windswept and in-between

nondescript mountains

marred by cold fronts

leaving marks on the high peaks

just to disintegrate

into the fallacy of black heat.

Hugging your festival fabric,

no more than a discarded heap,

it was singed with music.

Anticipating travel,

you pull out maps in motels

liminal cells to author the unlimited

to commence from nowhere towns

halting the empty space with solitary stoplights.

A brief respite against the all-encompassing night

descending in shadows across our fields of sight.

Soon there will be galaxies over our shoulders,

stars streaming into Cretaceous insects

feeding on the scraps of confinement we lay before them.

The next day the highway was a straight line

for hundreds of miles of mesas and heat mirages

spray painting the desert with abandoned messages,

searching for the remains of an icon,

we come across a cap over the blaze

in the place his spirit went out.

Blackened initials scrawled in stone,

forever scorched in memory.

Dead flowers left in this valley of dry bone,

blues that do not bloom on their own

but bear fruit from within you,

a lonesome tune

that by night floats to the moon

bejeweled in cloud fabric.

Pens become the only friends

that will populate this thoughtful insomnia.

Pulling words from this drawer

the hour would not keep confined

to its dusty enclosure.

Eyes follow the asphalt blur,

writing you choose to destroy by re-writing,

words wet and regenerative in this parched land,

soon tendril out of the sand,

harvested as art,

carefully withdrawn

from the prickly confines of its skin.

Jagged art, shattered from within.

Sharp fragments of explanation

others may gaze into

and find their own skewed reflections.

 

Canvass Transparency

Focusing on a point in-between

all the moments that came and will be.

A blank canvass

for the transparent vision

that if not for these columns

would be a decline into confusion.

A pondering of illuminated strands

stretched and torn

where hobbies are born out of the illusion

of sewing them back together.

A life picked apart.

A progression that picks up art

as it goes

until the last breath poses the question,

“What is left and what is worth bringing?”

For a collector of scenes,

becoming aware

of how they thread themselves into dreams,

like a canvass transparency

so that light can filter through in words,

a luminescent dial pointed towards this possibility.

With spasms of inspiration,

like an electric current,

climbing the spine.

A direct circuit

that feeds into the divine,

shines like a beacon’s light

across the night to suspend time,

like a bridge that connects no land.

 

The sun returns to fill in the cracks

between the cold and the blanket.

You feel eternity in the warmth alone,

when prone to consider

the thin veil between us.

Most days you lay hidden in variable weather.

So seeking diversion elsewhere,

you try to forget her.

Like a divergent thought

splitting paths

leaving traces

like shadow on the open spaces

or skin on the pillows of cloud,

a canvass, transparent

passing without a sound.

Another curve suddenly,

with no segway

(distant railroad whistles)

Only the lonely longing

that is evident in a melancholy heart

bound to an excess of feeling.

Warming to a kind of spontaneous animation,

the dancing flames,

the wrist that weaves its keening

into addresses and names.

It is stamped with a charred scent,

another goodbye,

post cards from a starter fire

inspires impermanence

with a burnt edge and a piece of paper.

Drifting up with sparks of insight,

dancing flecks moving aimless

into the dark of the night.

Fireflies in oblivion

you could almost grasp

as the last gasp of the hearth

crackles for all it is worth

in an amphitheater of shadows.