Keith Haring Journals (13 page)

In 1977 when I was working in the cafeteria at Fischer Scientific Corp. I was exposed to a very thorough collection of “alchemy artifacts.” Since the cafeteria was located next to their gallery and a conference room containing many artifacts, prints, and quotations by alchemists, I was in contact with these objects and ideas every day. The quote that struck me most then and that I still refer to often was one printed on a 5ʹʹ × 9ʹʹ card and hung beside a large painting of
The Alchemist’s Studio
. The air was full of excitement. All of the paintings contained a feeling of mystery with confidence.

“Chance favors the prepared mind.”—Louis Pasteur

Well, I have this new chunk of information that is shedding light on everything that came before it. That’s always how it works. And it also binds itself to this larger accumulating chunk that kind of absorbs this new information and makes the whole chunk new and stronger and a little larger. Well, part of this new awareness is leading me toward a possible acknowledgment of the big chunk in the universe. The mind of the universe. All knowledge. And every time you tap that you get closer to a kind of computer hook-up where you can plug your own personal accumulation into this eternal universal information and feed into it and off it and then your chunk can really start to grow. Or maybe it doesn’t grow . . . it functions. They grow together. They kind of throb.

Anyway, this new information all came to me this summer under one big label: POETRY.

I have been enlightened. I have fallen into poetry and it has swallowed me up.

I was [very large black rectangle] and when it spits me back out, or when I leave its system through its bowels, I will be [black rectangle] again.

THE CHUNK CALLED POETRY.

It started with JOHN GIORNO and BURROUGHS at the Nova Convention in December 1978. It’s reading CAGE and starting my first recording with four cassettes at SVA in February. It’s the poetries of video-tape and BARBARA BUCKNER. It’s BURROUGHS and GINSBERG and GIORNO upstairs at the MUDD CLUB. It’s living with DREW B. STRAUB, who was reading BURROUGHS thoroughly. It’s VIDEO CLONES with MOLISSA FENLEY. It’s ART SIN BOY and CLUB 57 POETRY READINGS EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT THIS SUMMER. It’s reading SAINT GENET by SARTRE on the subway going to work in QUEENS. It’s books from SVA library all summer and tape recorders from SVA for most of the summer. It’s BOOKS THAT YOU JUST FIND IN A LIBRARY . . . BOOKS THAT FIND YOU. It’s PATTI SMITH ON THE BIG EGO ALBUM with GIORNO, MEREDITH MONK, GLASS, etc. It’s reading RIMBAUD, KEATS, JEAN COCTEAU, JOHN CAGE, HEGEL, JEAN GENET, TALKING POETICS FROM NAROPA INSTITUTE. It’s meeting another like you and sharing everything including your body but mostly your ideas. It’s POETIC UNDERSTANDING AND JUSTIFIABLE HATE. It’s July 4 on the top of the Empire State Building after reading an ART SIN BOY mimeograph at Club 57 watching fireworks and thinking about the smile exchanged on the street and nothing but a second glance and lots of dreaming. It’s KLAUS NOMI at Xenon. READING GINSBERG’S JOURNALS, READING SEMIOTEXT, READING GERTRUDE STEIN, READING “HOWL” FOR THE FIRST TIME. It’s NOW-NOW-NOW and paintings I did in the fall of 1978. It’s Chinese pattern paintings in KERMIT’S HOUSE. BARBARA SCHWARTZ ON 22ND STREET AND DREW AT JOHN WEBER GALLERY BUILDING A ROBERT SMITHSON. DREW’S RAIN DANCE IN LITTLE ITALY. It’s listening to JOHN GIORNO read GRASPING AT EMPTINESS for the 27th time. It’s letting records skip for ten minutes and thinking it’s beautiful. IT’S HAVING DINNER ON AVENUE C WITH DINA, DOZO, AND FUGACHAN (A MAN). It’s thinking about SEX as ART and ART as SEX. It’s continued situations and controlled environments, B-52s, BATHS, AND SEX WITH FRIENDS. IT’S PAPA AND JOHN MCLAUGHLIN AND OUTER SPACE AND JET SET AND DELTAS AND THE ASTRO TWIST AND KENNY SCHARF AND LARRY LEVAN. It’s being heckled reading what may be my favorite mimeograph piece with two tape recorders and being called a FAGGOT. IT’S LISTENING TO OTHER POETS AT CLUB 57. TALKING TO POETS. BEING A POET AT CLUB 57. It’s painting on ST. MARKS outside of STROMBOLI PIZZA. It’s having one night at Club 57 when everyone in the open reading was in top form and everyone knows it and everyone is smiling. It’s HAL SIEROWITZ READING. IT’S BEING QUOTED IN HIS POEM AS SAYING, “‘I CONSIDER MYSELF MORE OF AN ARTIST THAN A POET,’ SAID KEITH.” IT’S MAKING XEROXES and mimeographs. IT’S MEETING CHARLES STANLEY AND BEING APPREHENSIVE. IT’S TAPING UP XEROXES WALKING HOME DRUNK. It’s looking in the window at BUDDHA. It’s seeing a TRUCK THAT SAYS “BETTER METHODS.” IT’S BUYING JEROME ROTHENBERG’S BOOK TECHNICIANS OF THE SACRED that BARBARA BUCKNER had lent to me in spring and now TIM MILLER has it out of the library and now I’m reading references to it in a new book I bought. IT’S ALL THOSE THINGS THAT FIT TOGETHER SO PERFECTLY THAT IT APPEARS PREDETERMINED. IT’S DREAMS OF FALLING INTO WARM WATER HOLE WITH EXOTIC FISH CREATURE AND ENOUGH LIGHT TO SEE EVERYTHING. It’s finding HANDBILLS ABOUT SIN that are poems in themselves. It’s painting on walls in the suburbs. It’s the bridge in LONG ISLAND WITH 1958 AND 1980 on parallel poles. IT’S FINDING OUT THE SPACE AGE BEGAN IN 1958. It’s STEVE PAXTON dancing in the sculpture garden at MoMA. It’s CARL ANDRE POEMS IN THE MOMA SUMMER SCULPTURE SHOW. It’s JONES BEACH ON SUNDAYS. It’s MATISSE. IT’S MATISSE. It’s listening to old cassettes I made in winter and understanding them for the first time. A NOTION OF PROPHECY. IT’S DOUGLAS DAVIS’S ARTICLE IN THE VILLAGE VOICE about post-modern art. “POST-ART.” It’s pornographic pictures and black feathers. It’s GERMANY. It’s JAPAN. It’s hearing DOW JONES AND THE INDUSTRIALS. It’s loose joints and conversations. IT’S THE SAME THING, THE SAME THING. It’s understanding painting. IT’S SOMEONE YELLING “LICK FAT BOYS.” IT’S CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ALL ART BEING PRETENTIOUS. It’s not going to look at ART in the galleries all summer. It’s seeing drawings by KEVIN CRAWFORD AND DREW B. STRAUB and thinking about the relationship. IT’S THINKING ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SEEMINGLY UNRELATED OBJECTS AND EVENTS. It’s an art “context.” It’s thinking about poetry on as many different levels as I can. It’s thinking about myself. It’s companions and ratios and mathematical principles. IT’S THE POETRY OF NUMBERS. Language, culture, time, spirit, universe. IT’S THE PAST PRESENT FUTURE ALL TIME NO TIME SAME THING. It’s systems within systems that evoke systems. ORDER-FORM-STRUCTURE-MATTER. It’s seeing TRISHA BROWN DANCE. IT’S ITALIAN FILMS FROM 1967. IT’S LAURIE ANDERSON AT MUDD CLUB. It’s NEW MUSIC, NEW YORK at the KITCHEN for a week. IT’S CHARLIE MORROW’S PIECE FOR 60 CLARINETS AT BATTERY PARK IN CELEBRATION OF THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER AT SUNSET. It’s the BRONX ZOO. Reading RIMBAUD’S LETTERS. Reading RIMBAUD’S ILLUMINATIONS ON THE SUBWAY AND IN A CAFE EATIN’ CREMOLATA AND DRINKING PER-RIER. IT’S FELLINI FILMS WITH TSENG KWONG CHI. It’s finding things on the street. IT’S CONVERSATION WITH LYNN UMLAUF ABOUT THE NOW NOW NOW TAPES A.J. WEBER GALLERY SHOW. IT’S XEROXES PUT UP IN the West Village for Gay Pride weekend and hearing people that had seen them months later. IT’S THE NINTH CIRCLE AFTER THE GAY PRIDE MARCH TALKING ABOUT APATHY AND MILITANCY. It’s wearing and distributing red-and-white stripes for one evening. IT’S READING AT CLUB 57 WHILE THIS WOMAN who I later found out was GLORIE TROPP is saying things like AHHH and DO IT and YEAH while I’m reading and it feels good. IT’S XEROXES at GRAND CENTRAL STATION IN A HURRY. It’s the poetics of chance. IT’S GOING TO THE POETRY SECTION INSTEAD OF THE ART SECTION WHEN YOU GO INTO A BOOKSTORE. It’s a panel about performance art with MEREDITH MONK, LAURIE ANDERSON, JULIE HEYWARD, CONNIE BECKLEY, AND ROSALEE GOLDBERG. IT’S GRAFFITI IN THE SUBWAY. It’s riding the BUS FROM KUTZTOWN TO N.Y.C. WITH CONNIE BECKLEY. It’s BRIAN WARREN’S NEW PIECES. It’s reading BRIAN’S journal and feeling close to it. IT’S A SHORT POEM CALLED “ART BOY.” It’s feeling real good about being an artist. It’s depression that can kill. It’s telling other people that depression can be productive and talking to yourself. IT’S KOZO’S BIRTHDAY PARTY AND SPANISH AND JAPANESE AND HEBREW. It’s “Running on Empty.” It’s delivering tropical plants in Manhattan. IT’S MANHATTAN IN THE SUMMER. It’s reading NAKED LUNCH. IT’S DISEASE XEROXES. It’s JOSEPH KOSUTH AT CASTELLI ON CONCEPT AND CONTEXT. IT’S JOAN JONAS’S “JUNIPER TREE.” It’s CONNIE BECKLEY’S INSTALLATION in the VIDEO ROOM AT MoMA. IT’S KERMIT’S NEW DRAWINGS. It’s playing CROQUET in Kutztown. It’s talking about epileptic fits in an art context. It’s suicide. It’s ART AS SIN AS IF NO ART AS ART. It’s MOHOLY-NAGY. It’s JEAN COCTEAU WRITING ON “THE ORIGINAL SIN OF ART.”

 

IT’S ANONYMOUS SEX. IT’S RE-READING DREW STRAUB’S “UNIVERSE” WHILE LISTENING TO THE “UNI-VERSE” cut-up tapes we did in February or March IN AUGUST. IT’S READING BURROUGHS’S TALK ABOUT WORK WITH CUT-UPS ON TAPE IN AUGUST MONTHS AFTER WE HAD READ THE THIRD MIND AND DID THE SAME THING. It’s the most logical step. LOGICAL DOESN’T MEAN RATIONAL. It’s science-fiction films. It’s reading SARTRE’S SAINT GENET ALL SUMMER with much else in between. It’s 40 postcards sent to KERMIT OSWALD 172 W. MAIN ST. KUTZTOWN PA. 19530. It’s not painting all summer except maybe once or twice. IT’S UNDERSTANDING WHY I SHOULDN’T TRY TO UNDERSTAND. IT’S “NEGATIVE CAPABILITY”—AS SAID KEATS. DIANE DI PRIMA ON “LIGHT AND KEATS.” It’s wanting to know more. It’s an accumulation of information. IT’S AN IDEA FOR TOTAL THEATRE. It’s a new understanding. IT’S A BEGINNING A SEED A GARDEN IT’S THE BIG CHUNK CALLED POETRY.

Acrostics, Reading Horizontally