After Trust Me, German Expressionism
Acrylic on canvas by Jason Carusillo
Spores have fungus'd the air,
my nose, powdered white,
and I can't breathe. There's fire
in my lungs; night turns red.
A century of dreams, delicious
wet air in my cave, now dried.
My leather skin warped around
me, changing, folding into myself,
into my own burial wrap. Now,
I free-fall through the dark,
stalagmites poking stony fingers.
I can feel them loom, prick
into vestige of my body — a cape
from Tartarus, smooth, dark.
My furred head with eyes as black
beads, turned inside out; muscles
kneaded as plastic dough. Fear
paints wet flesh, green; red sinew
contorting, twisting colors into
hideous face — humanoid, bat
identity transformed to Dracula's
with fangs not blind for blood.
Postscript: A mysterious plague is wiping out cave-dwelling bats in much of the eastern US. An unknown fungus, Geomyces, is a white, powdery-looking organism found on the muzzles, ears and wings of dead and dying bats hibernating in caves. The white-nose syndrome, linked to the fungus, first appeared in the winter of 2006/2007. It interrupts the hibernation cycle and awakens them too early. The bats then prematurely burn too much energy looking for food and die from starvation.
After Pieces of Jack, Cubism
Acrylic on Canvas by Jason Carusillo
From the movie Wolf (1994):
The demon wolf is not evil,
unless the man he has bitten is evil.
And it feels good to be a wolf, doesn't it?
Power without guilt. Love without doubt.
— Dr. Vijay Alezias
I've never loved anybody this way.
Never looked at a woman and thought,
if civilization fails, if the world ends,
I'll still understand what God meant.
— Will Randall (Jack Nicholson)
His smile, parceled in Picasso's
cubes, white fangs, teeth, showing
on every facet of his geodesic'd face
—cold blue, even sadder purple.
Is this how the transformation
—man to wolf—
occurs in the fourth dimension?
Arms, legs neatly folded
like Rubik's pieces poking though
the third and fifth dimensions
at the same time. Yes,
I see fire spreading between them,
the cold hot orange of space, hell
blurred with heaven and earth
in every facet, triangular or square,
substance converting to spirit,
laughter gelling between polygons,
fear oozing all over you
or what used to be you, the meek
silent lamb, now somewhere
between heaven and hell.
The wolf will lie
with the lamb, and the lamb
skewered into cubes.
After Inflames, Expressionism
Acrylic on canvas by Jason Carusillo
Imagine the "man in the moon" or angels
in clouds hiding among the moving shapes
of shadow, light. Chiaroscuro in pale skies.
Behold the glitter of heaven, the beautiful
dark scintillated with stars, each like crystal
trapping brilliant light. Sapphire blues or red
rubies strewn on black velvet.
That star! The solitary diamond in the cold
galaxy. Zoom in. See it seethe continent-size
bubbles of hot plasma — granulation of heat.
Feel the inferno? A mere ten thousand degrees
Fahrenheit. Skin of this sun, a fiery crocodile's —
scales glow amber, scours emptiness, loneliness.
You are not alone.
Imagine the "man in the moon" or angels
in clouds … or Satan in sun's hell. All that glitters
is not gold.
After Layers of Man, Expressionism
Mixed media on paper by Jason Carusillo
Sometimes everything is black and white with symmetry of good and evil.
Like the hypocrites in the Gospels of Matthew and Dr. Luke, each a casket,
smooth mahogany white, yet full of dead man's bones — the living dead—
skin peeled off the charcoaled face, sinew frayed, off-gray. Cut away
the milk-colored, yet soured, yellow-looking flesh, to the pure bone white
frame caging a black heart — the beauty
of hatred.
