Hortus Poems

Luc Piron paintings digital prints

Andreas Weiland

poems

2006-2008 Hortus 1

“in the garden of god god is in the garden in the wind and the wind is tending the lilies the lilies that are in the field And the leaves are blowing in the wind And god is in the garden in the wind” arum - II - 3 arum – II – 3

Ptolemaeus may have drawn the map of the earth Between plates of glass in similar fashion - watched through the microscope Biologists draw the map of a plant’s interior it seems to still swing a little as if it was a world of its own - in the fluid it loses A dark continent swing in it & opened like a babe in the mother’s womb it turns out it is grey & purple, O yeah orange, with a bit of pale blue I ain’t that dumb it has a well as its “center” it was torn open it was cut open

but the “center” is (but not by a bomb’s shrapnel - de-centered a razorblade sufficed)

and who Like the eye cut can tell in Une chien andalou the number of veins it bleeds to death carrying nourishment from the soily source simply runs dry bringing water from the watery underground Then why new strength do I see its lovely image from the layer of humus? once more? A mere shade Dissected, on the pastose grey-white plate none of that just opposite – is still the case – arum 2 arum 2

Just see it! maybe I’m dreaming a cut, obviously - maybe I’m all wrong through the stem women are cutting flowers, too of a plant, I think of course they are they are putting them into a vase the way you find it next minute in a science book under a microscope

a biologist’s book Ah do they still? the book of somebody and do they love

who cuts up the colors? plants the strange microcosm of forms, and colors? puts them under a microscope And then - He sees do they have a notebook a copybook a journal (yes he, he lined with red lines there are not so many crossing neatly women cutting up plants forming tiny red squares not roses, at least, And will they use the page and not those days, to jot down the results? when they put plants under microscopes for the first time - Which results, it comes to mind – or the second) and who, the women?

Or the men, Mister? arum 1 arum 1

a striped flag the striped flag of science does it occur to you that this might be the striped flag of science? asparagus-02 asparagus-02

Vast, the black flag of anarchy Bright & red the red of revolutions Brighter and much more lovely still the red of a kiss of lips the red of small particles of a plant called

asparagus

is it like a kiss, to you? Is it like a revolution?

Moving in the breeze I see leaves swinging so green in the light that my eyes cling to them

White in the light of day I see stems of asparagus

I never knew there were those red blossoms asparagus-04 asparagus-04

footprints in the snow stories about their interrelationship of a man - their distribution relative to each other of a hunchback, even - and to the white surface of pigs and deer “the snow” a hare the white void of the snow a small watchful rat When I turn I’ve seen it looking at me and look away a bright one they vanish

with its probing eyes Vanish perhaps these are merely in the black void the imprints of mice of a different time and space or so many amino acids And then, looking closer or particles of plant substance I see them reappear under the microscope Reappear as dark forms afterimages in black and yet they enable me to tell endless stories standing out from a black void stories about the beauty of colors of forms How does the saying go? “Nothing gets ever lost” anemone anemone anemone

anne marie like men devour your beauty the corresponding color anemonee with their eyes of an after-image anomie dissecting you as you turn your head away demonee with their eyes from the original me, too, yes me after looking at it the mirror and there it is again for a long time or “smoke gets in the eyes”, love framed in black & the cross-section You focus on of a flower the black of night the white wall so red its emptiness -

as your lips your sweet the abstract night’s blackest black that is and the image reappears: face your breasts belly cunt legs the blacker than all nights the after-image tiny feet the void’s black I see it yes, sweet love void black as if immersed in a night the flower is sweet to eat black that is that is not black it is there, right before your eyes null & void under the microscope and the scientist eats it and in the dream devours it, with his eyes in the night the beauty returns again its echo the echo of its form and instead of pink and cinnabar red it’s greyish blueish green now ficus-II-2 ficus–II-2

two oval structures - Later, I will tell you they are lamps the way of scientists? beetles? lamps shining from within the way of machines – the machines parts of a tree? magically like a face scientists use? x-ray photos, you see, like the soul of a face are stranger than strange at times (small beetles all over it, I will say) As my eyes wander on their light magical mystical filled with the they meet a window secrets of radium The structure, abstract - It is left in an abstract black wall Abstract structures! of abstract concrete - Madame Curie died of it Have these parts of nature I know it is the window of a jail in the end abstract structures? the window of the mind’s jail

Cancer, you know Do they? I see through it the obvious and I see the light Does everything, The obvious & the riddle - as we cut it up its varied intensities Who made radium glow? as we x-ray it who did the x-rays of these strange have abstract structures? between the crossed staves enigmatic objects? of a jail window... Do we impose these structures on everything, is it our way of looking? ficus 02 ficus 02

BLACK and RED I hold in place Night AND Day? the shadow of DISASTER and LIFE? another growing plant? NOTHINGNESS, THE VOID, I do not know THE BLACK HOLES OF THE UNIVERSE and I guess the night beyond the living, fragrant the fence the plant substance of a rose? its shadow that I saw

O not a rose I want

a different red maybe I waned and yet I see I fell just through the grid the porous surface of the flower’s skin I hid my head in shamed confusion still not quite a fool and in and loved the shadow’s warmth the middle - the transparence is it the grid of of science that stands out? so green - AHH! and white it’s there and with a yellow trace - and isn’t is it a fence? that says, O look! whatever it may be... ficus 03-B ficus 03-B

A BLACK SQUARE it’s Are plants PROMINENT, ON THE LEFT filled with things? the black net of a lady’s stockings it keeps in balance the rest “in the last analysis, the whitish space, filled with the black net of fishermen everything repeated forms is OUTSIDE the ornamental spiraling black pattern of even we ourselves - irritating in themselves think about it OUT THERE abstract think about what it may be – out in the world” and not abstract

I seewhite shining through it “tending the garden, you mean?”, I wanted to ask nothing but reason “or stepping on the flowers, treading and nothing but living form I see forms shining through on the grass?” AND THEN voluminous forms living forms I ask the darker rectangle cleavages the grass for forgiveness on the right: depths stepping on it, it is true composed of two parts rising areas I know it announces my coming

half of it plant structure, is it? one leaf of grass being entirely black life, is it? to the next half SOMETHING, is it? quite another story Man, and the Things ficus 03 ficus 03

ficus benjaminus and greyish white it’s the bamian tree just in a corner the tree of an Indian sage a son, no - not of a carpenter and black - the shadows the son of a king did I say, the shadows?

who dropped the royal robe and black the larger shadow echoing and sought simplicity in the black of a rectangle as artists may seek simplicity too of a square looking for harmony the two black spaces

longing for the void that flank “To make it visible” – the void an ornamental pattern how do you go about it? repetitive like How do you show the essence of a tree, a leaf? a wallpaper pattern floral like O yeah – the petals! the enlarged pattern the shadow of the petals! of flowery substances

spiraling structure its tender pastel colors of a background are inserted into its greenish transparence white its light flores digitalis 2 flores digitalis 2

how do you put a foxglove The And yet, it’s there – into a thimble Amazonian world of colors the void how do you take the world of living growing breathing substance the nothingness of transcendence the fingerprints the world of life matter of the mind of a plant the living world of the ego how do you paint of fluid order and the non-ego the structure of changes of of amino acids of chaos abstraction how how will you see it confronted And yet, it’s there

and how? see it balanced very concretely by the blackness A BLACK SQUARE so many hows of black And in a scientific world - ! the blotted out A SQUARE MADE OF BLACK SQUARES so many surprises? light put into frames Look at the vaudeville fairy tale or the of grey of le renard pure white? the clever fox wearing a glove! the grey that mixes they merge: white & black fox and glove forming a digitale - that is as abstract as the two a tender flower and as unreal, too? it belongs to the species of “flores digitalis” folium 2-4 folium 2-4

Look at it! the bright & shining light in the lantern

it’s structure so regular flies seem to sit on it

And yet what’s that - a LANTERN?

how do you know?

how is a leave a leave?

how is a curve a curve?

the square four squares oppose the grey is made of squares the black

is black fragara 1 fragara 1

yellows & greens & violets subdued immersed in brightly glowing red

and yet, the black is there a patch, a square

two squares

one vibrant, colors glow and stream the other heavy sinking into depth that is opaque and as the eye goes on & wanders wonders a door is opened in the paper wall a light shines through where from? & whither do we go? hyacintus 2-1 hyacintus 2-1

glowing blue and back, you look, at the flowers glowing blue... and yellow strips so intense yellow stripes iris-blue are hardly visible in the night are you true to life? and everything’s black now a wife of the dark everything’s right? that surrounds without bounds when calm serenity

that sounds confronts us the note? with a vivid distribution of irregular forms? the blue note played The norms of reason tell us in the dark nay in the night of nights where nothing’s as bright but life swings on as you the life is hyacinthus the song in this field the jazzy tune

which is true the void is, too & which gives way silence streams to black & pulsates in the darkest dark narcissus 2-B narcissus 2-B

curved grid latitudes & longitudes of the narcissus sunk in darkness

step away, from it into the indeterminacy of gray

dots and patches rain against the eye a gustofwind, blowing blossoms infrontofit

chaos is life? life is chaos?

step away, from it into the indeterminacy of gray narcissus 2 narcissus 2

a grid a curved grid the curved grid of a globe its structure no more than an after-image NACHBILD after-light ILLUMINATION TARDIVE of a flower

it resurfaces as a NET the stable rectangular net of man’s mechanical reason which you’ll find nowhere in nature

when you transcend it there is the freedom of nothingness Paeonia-II-1 paeonia-II-1

a globe in the dark universe engulfed in darkness and yet - studded with colored lights

a paeonia its blossom seen from above it’s soft, not rough

it’s DREAMing

IT’S asLEEP

seeing it again in a different place at a different time (a second look) I know it’s in fast movement it’s EXPLODING it’s blurred it’s grey patches of color they shoot away like shooting stars like the light of shooting stars the light of flashes of a camera intruding into the dark Paeonia 1 paeonia 1

above, or “placed upon” – I was hurled “embedded in” – and rising from into emptiness a texture, anthracite & grey, it confronted as if flannel?, I see a rose; its blooming blossom, the garden, it was closed, its antithesis I see it there, a faint and yet so strong presence & cosmos like a Japanese house a garden of its own it showed a perfect distribution subdued, the light of night that sheds the whiteness of objects in space of a distant moon upon these leaves, so densely close very few objects, needless to say

to each, where each is taking, craving its allotted the space – was gray spot, a tender space so dear, and here it was I saw the universe embedded in a rose

The rose of course was not a rose “Where the paeonia blossoms” strange gardens are filled with a miniature of the world sambucus-3 sambucus-3

dreamed-up, faintly white the distant star of a winter night and more such structures soft not bright & then, & now & don`t know how

a song of silence swimming in the

misty light

repeated by an echo

they make a world in balance

Sambucus 03 (2009)

in the darkness of the womb I see the But lighted babe’s cave the analyzed stands out In the darkness of the universe a mere fragment the birth of a star of this world’s reality In the darkness of the night a mere there is the hole summary of the items my eye hides in we have chosen Under the to focus on microscope

its lense As we look at you, enclosed in dark matter flower under the there is the microscope, well-lighted universe which beauty of microbes do we perceive? bacteriae and which other beauty cells dividing evades us? and cells forming links Sept. 3, 2010

In the darkness, I say – in the darkness – So much is / in the darkness of our lives that we don’t know about that we sense, at best that is there, there and dark as night

im Dunkel des Bauchs sehe ich Doch beleuchtet die Höhle des Kindes tritt das Analysierte hervor In der Dunkelheit des Alls bloßes Fragment die Geburt eines Sterns der Wirklichkeit dieser Welt Im Dunkel der Nacht eine bloße das Loch Summierung der Dinge worin mein Auge sich birgt auf die zu blicken Unter dem wir wählten Mikroskop seiner Linse Während wir auf dich schauen

eingeschlossen in dunkle Materie Blume unter dem dort Mikroskop, das gut ausgeleuchtete Universum welche Schönheit der Mikroben nehmen wir wahr? Bakterien Und welch andre von Zellen die sich teilen entgeht uns? und Zellen die sich verbinden (aus dem Englischen übersetzt am 3. Sept. 2010) In der Dunkelheit, sag ich – In der Dunkelheit – So viel ist / in der Dunkelheit unsrer Leben wovon wir nicht wissen was wir allenfalls spüren das aber da ist, dort: dunkel, wie die Nacht sambucus-01 sambucus 01

ou And WHAMM wow it is the matter put below the lens ouch it is a structure but you don`t know whence out of reach it`s come – it`s there out of sync and that`s enough unbalanced the dream is rough & and ready balanced and the structure lives: the dark so vast & so it`s full of life preponderant so dominant it`s rife with

the black is back dreams of growing the white is nicely in the garden... crowned with pinkish reds and azure greens with violets who bets and tells me The black confronts it vastly what it is yet it`s checked and where a margin greys and how to dream it yet again to life and leaves a dot Comes back to life, eh, does it, does it of white come? sambucus-02 sambucus 02

a triptych of black & white and the left part? dark grey veils BLACK how harmonious it is of dreamlike non-matter IN THE CENTER and how chaotic The cut does not matter the left part how bright the pain has gone a cut and how it’s containing a memory the right part the dark remains its darker shadow how irregular it drains and how regular the contrasts and the cut life is running is a cut through these veins the opposites are

and the cut goes life was pulsing in them approaching each other right through the tissue but now they’re cut a thesis – something

a plant And the right part? an antithesis – nothingness the tissue of a plant the darker shadow? a synthesis the tissue of a cut plant It`s soft what is left the cut has mellowed as something returns veins that the plant juice flows in the pain has faded having traversed cellular matter the bright light is no longer bright nothingness matter that encompasses and darkness has lost its hardness veins no endless holes now but warm caves how empty the CENTRAL BLACK is – no whitish trails and how solid of cellular matter how fearless but and how fearful how much of a void and how much of a black mass envisioned solis 2 solis 2

what a sunflower seen from above – dark sun of a blackened sky - after-image as I shut the eye

it’s balanced by

the gray rectangle – of its four black corners one has been shifted tulipa 2 tulipa 2

red rouge I`ve felt it draw close lipstick red I’ve known its approach dark wine red I’ve seen glowing red it red red right in the middle a very red red the tremendous darkness I see it in the tears the endless distance dropping / they are red wine Standing out of absolute blackness

I see it in the wine it is faced with a rectangular labyrinth dropping like a palace prison of red tears secure steadfastness I see the pattern of bricks of the dream that was From its guarded window constructed like a tulip blossom its shape a melody I looked into emptiness pushing on longing endlessly longing towards the starless night the sun that was spreading its silence tulipa 3 tulipa 3

A dream of a song that it might break and A woman’s face at night, in the wither and somber moonlight. just dust A cool wind, as if blowing across the street would remain from out of a neon sign any minute A huge glowing Las Vegas billboard saying Come in * See this beauty this naked tulip And who took a photo of it? transparent in the spotlight an x-ray photo –

clad with like a memory only a single dark star stuck in the mind... in the very center singing on and fading and not fading The next moment for so many years already... I see the tulip again It is a tender kiss as the lights are turned out in a motel room with the blinds down low and so fragrant so aetherial ficus triptych ficus triptych

In this triptych, the panels are clearly separated by Then two strong black vertical spaces or columns lined by flowers clear white lines. seem to bloom. The panels are vibrant, with many small points, a Seem to speak of digitally created pattern; there are dark black their secrets shades, whitish areas, their snake greenish hues. movements I think of their a jungle, I see restless mountain ridges, deep valleys. omnipresent

I also see energies human bodies, The juice of rohrschach-like. life inside Arms raised. pushing & flowing in Faces. every direction Legs opening wide. For a moment I fear their limbs are torn, off, scattered in a wilderness. I see an observant owl. (May 3 – 4, 2008)

- Andreas Weiland asparagus 03 Asparagus 03 (2008)

enclosed in white eingeschlossen in WEISS in SILENCE in STILLE a dance of colors ein Tanz der Farben a rainbowesque kiss ein regenbogenartiger Kuß of spring des Frühlings as if, suddenly als ob, plötzlich I was drunk, drunk with ich trunken wär, trunken vor love of life Liebe zum Leben I tumble, Ich schwanke, falle enraptured hingerissen

lanterns, green, yellow Laternen, grün, gelb red and blue rot und blau swing in the wind – schaukeln in Wind in the summer breeze in der Sommerbrise while I drink the während ich trinke, wieder wine of youth, again vom Wein der Jugend I dream – Ich träum I, an old man – Ich, ein alter Mann and a figure appears before my inner eye: und eine Gestalt erscheint, vor dem inneren Auge naked, naked and shy nackt, nackt und scheu not in the least kein bisschen blossoms are raining Blüten regnen von allen Seiten all over her auf sie herab

Tielt-Winge, Sept. 3, 2010 (aus dem Englischen übersetzt am 3. Sept. 2010) ficus II-1 fiolium 2-1