Alexander J. Motyl
(USA)
Paintings
The paintings
always stare back,
even the landscapes
depicting dancing gods
and prancing satyrs
(amidst crumbling ruins
adorning leafy backgrounds)
and silently saying
that gazing
observing
interpreting
understanding
are pointless ventures,
useless undertakings
doomed to failure,
because the paintings
always stare back:
even portraits
of staid burghers,
genteel ladies,
kings, queens,
and courtesans—
all sly folk
prone to evading
our penetrating
eyes by looking
elsewhere
(or pretending
to be looking
elsewhere),
while knowing
that pretending
exposes gazers
and stargazers
to the penetrating
side-glances
of vanished landscapes
and long-dead people
seeing through us
and finding
nothing.
The Olden Days
I went to my café yesterday
expecting to drink a coffee
and read a book.
Instead,
I read the coffee
and drank the book.
That was surprising,
and I still don’t know
how I did it
or how it was done.
I do know the obvious.
Miracles are a dime a dozen,
natural laws are easily broken,
time stops at will,
and universes multiply like rabbits,
but—there is, alas, always a but—
only when you’re not looking,
only when you’re not expecting
miracles to be a dime a dozen,
natural laws to be easily broken,
time to stop at will,
and universes to multiply like rabbits.
I now know this too.
Anomalies are not anomalies,
but regularities, and regularities
are always irregular—
just as repetitions
are never really repetitive.
This means this.
Drinking is reading
and reading is drinking,
books are coffees
and coffees are books.
This also means this.
It’s obviously best
to take your books black,
as sugar and cream
can make such a mess.
As Martial once said:
Difficilis facilis,
iucundus acerbus es idem.
The Romans got it right,
maybe because,
in the olden days,
universes didn’t yet multiply like rabbits.
The Subjunctive
Viewed subjectively
or viewed objectively,
the subjunctive voice
obviously both
vindicates and vitiates
the slow unfolding
of visions
of certainty and uncertainty,
of boredom and surprise,
of wonder and shock.
Shockingly,
though unexpectedly,
the subjunctive subtly
subjugates objects
without objectifying subjects.
How odd,
how exceedingly odd,
that something as subjective
as the subjunctive
should subvert subjectivity
so thoroughly,
so ruthlessly,
so objectively.
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BIO
Alexander J. Motyl (b. 1953, New York) is a writer, painter, and professor. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2008 and 2013, he is the author of nine novels, Whiskey Priest, Who Killed Andrei Warhol, Flippancy, The Jew Who Was Ukrainian, My Orchidia, Sweet Snow,Fall River, Vovochka, Ardor, and a collection of poetry, Vanishing Points. Motyl’s artwork has been shown in solo and group shows in New York City, Philadelphia, and Toronto and is part of the permanent collection of two museums. He teaches at Rutgers University-Newark and is the author of seven academic books and numerous articles. Motyl lives in New York City.