by Dana Lam

(from a viewing of The Neon Hieroglyph by Tai Shani

 SIFA 2022. On 27 May 2022)

 

 

I am        here

   Here  I  am  

 I

                 Am

                                           Here

 

-

 

Lempicka

 

              Dali

                             Man Ray

    Magritte

 

-

 

Smoke gets in my eye (apologies to the Platters)

 

-

Nothing is more real than nothing (apologies to Samuel Beckett)

 

-

Here is something

              Signs of retinal detachment –

              Sudden appearance of floaters drifting through your vision

 

-

Psychedelia

                             Eye Opener

              Can Opener

                            

                             Spore Diffuser

 

-

              Light

                             Camera

 

                                           Filter

 

-

Retina revisions – the elephant in my eye

 

 

 

-

              Random Hack 1: How to treat a stye

              Don’t pick at elephants

              Don’t mess with fungi

 

-

This happened –

              As I was passing the man from behind, he

              Swivelled back sharply – to avoid sneezing onto his friends

 

              He was taller than I by a head

 

-

There is no misstep in biology. No mistaking in internal clocks

                                                                        External stimuli

 

-

We are spores          floaters       directed by murmuration

 

-

Here is another something

              Retinal fixation

              The maintaining of the gaze on a single location

 

-

         Omnipotent screen

 

-

Not so random fact: Neon is a noble gas, colourless, odourless, inert

Wait – colourless?

 

-

Seeing God in the Third Millennium (Oliver Sacks)

 

-

There’s the eye again

                             Wormhole

                                                          To

 

-

Alice

Strawberries and claws

              Big

                             Little

Law of opposites

 

 

-

And, another thing

              Agnosia

              The inability to recognise objects or people – a rare disorder

-

              Not my problem

                                                          Yet

                            But

                                           What was that?

 

-

Upon flowering in the spring, the Chiloglottis trapeziformis

converts UVB light, the wavelength that causes sunburns, into

chemicals that mimic the pheromones of female wasps.

Thinking that it has found a mate, the male wasp probes his genitals

at the orchid’s lip, and in the process, unknowingly

collects pollinia with its body.  (the orchid folios, Mok Zining)

 

-

              From the hot seat in the house –

 

                             From my pain I came

                             In sticky sap I came (apologies to Tai Shani)

 

-

              Hot flush

 

-

We are star-dust, we are golden

and we’ve got to get ourselves back

to the garden (apologies to Joni Mitchell)

 

-

              Scribbles in the dark –

              Museum of unrecoverable vibrations

                            Down

                                           Pelt

                             Skin felt

 

-

              I think of yeast

 

-

              My dog comes in the mornings

              Buries his muzzle between

my knees,

Sneezes

 

-

How to Harvest Yeast from the Air (apologies to Google)

Place a cloth on top. Wait for spores to settle.

Wait – on top of what?

              Go figure

 

-

How to Make Appam (apologies to Constance Singam)

One teaspoon yeast in mixture of flour and water.

Leave to stand.

 

-

How to Make Yogurt (apologies to Constance Singam)

Boil milk.

Add one teaspoon yeast.

Store in warm dark place.

Leave to stand.

 

-

Mulberry is a hallucinogen

 

-

The thing about leaving to stand is

Exactly it –

                      Leave

                                      To

                                              Stand

 

Which is to say

              Do  Not  Agitate

                     Do  Not  Stir

             

-

Who Knew?

 

-

Spores kill

 

-

I knew a man

Overcome by spores

In

              His

                             Gut

 

-

 

You broke my heart with your eyes

The sun is a ghost that haunts the night (final apologies to Tai Shani)

 

  

-End-