Rich

Statement:

Seven Visions for Glossory

I.

Clouds decorating the ceiling of tight-fitting bedrooms. Belongings stored in boxes inside cabinets in adjacent rooms. Smoke-soaked carpets lining corridors, muffling sleepless footsteps that tiptoe above voices drifting below. Curtains framing windows framing couches where shadows hang around smoking through pages of reports on last night’s show.

Outside, the stars in the sky hang low.

II.

Skyscrapers of stacked-up closets with revolving doors looping through more outings and retreats than coked up travel agents preparing for high season peak. Scrolls leaping out of windows, arching before rolling clouds, falling twenty stories and curling before touching ground. Basements filled with dumpsters bursting with intentionally damaged teapots, slashed to restrain resale as new collections ask to be bought, flooding ground-level vitrines. Streets busy with reclining silhouettes tapping ring-laden fingers on embroidered knees, waiting their turn as slowly, steam coils out of manholes throughout the city.

III.

Abandoned display booths accumulating spirals of fog, piling up in wastelands on the edge of town. Littered receipts and shredded documents frothing out of cardboard boxes storing whispers and secrets of smothering bureaucratic banality. Evidence disappearing in billows of smoke while smartly-dressed thieves steal more treasures than diplomats in a foreign cemetery. Bored guards drinking tea while on duty, day-dreaming of their outfit for the party.

IV.

Adverts leave traces of transactions and missed connections. Flyers blow through empty streets awaiting garbage collection, sticking to pant legs invitingly. Accessories are piled on carefully. Perfumes, dabbed on daringly. Boots step out gracefully, gracing sidewalks of alleyways where puddles glitter surreptitiously. Street lights flicker reassuringly.

V.

Teapots perpetually emerging like rock stars from the steam-filled cabinets of your dreams. Stylish cut-outs deceptively posing like models in the unwritten pages of magazines. Quills dancing in the hands of fans awaiting autographs by stage door. Deals, contracts and settlements, always part of the decor.

VI.

Promises waiting to be broken. Kisses hanging on lips, unspoken. Shadows grasping to corners of ever-tightening spaces.

Tight clothing leaving more marks than sheets after lazy Sunday embraces. Hazy looks turn to the firmament as fingers fiddle in torn pockets sorting through love notes, coins and paper clips. Filaments curl out of rips like the languorous smoke signals of intricate wordless courtships. Were we ever going to make it til dawn? Hold on.

VII.

My life will not be dealt out without me.

Text: François Pisapia