Technologies / Installations
KIM MALTMAN
TECHNOLOGIES / INSTALLATIONS
BRICK BOOKS
CANADIAN CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Maltman, Kim, 1950-
Technologies / installations
Poems.
ISBN 0-919626-46-7
I. Title.
PS8576.A57T4 1990 C811'.54 C90-094545-1
PR9199.3.M35T4 1990
Brick Books gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.
© Kim Maltman, 1990
Brick Books
www.brickbooks.ca
Box 20081
431 Boler Road
London, Ontario
N6K 4G6
Canada
for Roo
CONTENTS
The Technology of Sorrow
The Technology of Inertia
The Technology of the Narcissus
Installation #4
The Technology of the Persistence of Memory
The Technology of the Moon and the Eugenia
Installation #7
The Technology of the Sadness of the Quantum Physicist
The Technology of How the Moon is Made Faceless
The Technology of the Hostility of Objects
The Technology of Compassion and Complacency
Installation #12
The Technology of Terror
The Technology of Objects
The Technology of Nausea, and Ecstasy, Which,
Having Flared a Moment, Remain Like a Blue Flame
Around the Body
The Technology of the Metal at the Heart of Sorrow
Installation #17
The Technology of History, Tangled as it is By the Desire for Greatness
Installation #19 (Disquiet and Distance)
The Technology of Sound (30 Below)
Installation #21
The Technology of the Yellow Butterflies
The Technology of Arrogance Which Enters the Mind Unasked
and Poisons It With Visions of Paradise
The Technology of Happiness
Installation #27 (Solitude, with bees)
The Technology of Metal, Turning
Installation #33
The Technology of Doubt Such As Grows Unwanted From the Furrows of the Brain
Installation #36
The Technology of Industry
Installation #42 (Stella in Red)
The Technology of Introspection
The Technology of Miracles
Installation #47 (Sudden Pain)
Installation #49
The Technology of the Woman in the Dunes
Installation #51 (The Rio Grande)
Installation #52
The Technology of the Existence of Memory
The Technology of the Secret Technology of Armaments
The Technology of ‘Romance’
The Technology of the Day of the Dead
Installation #54
The Technology of Salvation
The Technology of Sheep
The Technology of Affection
Installation #61 (Minor Irritation)
The Technology of Alchemy
Installation #63
Installation #66 (Eschatological Bravado)
Installation #67
The Technology of God
The Technology of Mortality
The Technology of Cruelty
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. Francis Bacon
The best music always results from ecstasies of logic. Alban Berg
The singed shores, the bears who talk. The VAX Primer
… But obviously nobody takes an idea like this seriously, even though of course such ideas, which are not taken seriously, are actually the only serious ideas and always will be. It is in order to survive, it seems to me, that we have such serious ideas which are not taken seriously.…Thomas Bernhard
THE TECHNOLOGY OF SORROW
When the back is tired of the weight
and of the carrying
it makes a joke of it
It takes off the head
and lays it on a grassy slope
Then the arms
which are not tired
join in
Their joke is a joke of
looking elsewhere
dissolving into the air and the
body at once
But how unstintingly the back
bears its burdens
Gently reaching down
it replaces the head
And the arms too
sky-blue at the veins
Only the head does not forgive the little joke
It is in a sour mood
It wants to control the body
to fill it up with sorrow
This is why the body stands so still now
under the weight
The body will not run on sorrow
It will not bear it
THE TECHNOLOGY OF INERTIA
The image of Klaus Barbie comes to a wall
and sees before it
not so much a wall
as the absence of a door,
a momentary obstacle.
With a jackhammer he sets to work and soon
a hole is knocked in the offending wall
just large enough for a man to pass through.
Only there before him
is another wall,
like the first.
Again he begins with the jackhammer.
Again a wall.
Let this continue.
However often he may knock a hole
let us place before him yet another wall.
Let us grant ourselves that power.
Not that it could have been,
or ever will be, so,
but let us imagine it anyway, until,
disgusted, he turns from the wall
and walks back through the open door.
What we are hoping for, perhaps,
is the sound of gunfire,
the silence of the garrotte,
that it should reach far back in time,
but still, this is only
vicious and wishful thinking, and of course
it is 1984 and Barbie is alive.
No, we are thinking
of another sort of door entirely.
A man and woman
– and where once much pleasure
passed between them now is none.
Only the fear of losing some
desired but unknown
comfort
binding them across the table.
Facing the woman,
with whom once he
gave and shared contentment –
turned now –
as if something laughed at behind
