The Pynchon 'Glowing Neck' at Point a-Venn

The Pynchon 'Glowing Neck' at Point a-Venn


to see is to conceive
and to conceive is to compose
the photograph of Paul Gauguin
taken by Boutet de Monvel
is an exquisite echo
of the composition
of Paul Sérusier's The Talisman
but together create a memory of Poussin's
Sacrament of Ordination


Gauguin lays down at table
The Romantic unfurls
as a blur
and Nature-The-All-Encompassing
makes of Jesus
Pan holding up his tuning fork compass


A compass (or pair of compasses)
is a technical drawing instrument
that can be used for inscribing
circles or arcs a picture
is an original combination
of lines
and colours that set one another
off across the map


Paul Cézanne a key
to all this modern conceptuality
or a plug for a jug
Shemayon Keppa like
Mitra or Varuna
was interested in binding
and loosing
Joseph Campbell Conrad
from Georges Dumézil's
poetant grasp
the trifunctional hypothesis


priests may lie and help or hurt
warriors may lie and help or hurt
and commoners may lie
and to remain common
The young Nabis
met Cézanne and Degas
through the work of Paul Gauguin
who declared
Our renaissance descends
from Manet's Olympia


Every impressionable matter
is an expression