Art: Le rideau by Jerome Romain
THE MOON WATER CASE
Dusk coats a parched topography
as I grab bucket and shovel
and drive my Plymouth through
The Vallis Alpes Valley
that once flowed along a river’s lava curve.
Fast-forward to the solidification of now,
a throng of schoolchildren
walk across the walkway.
I speed ahead to the cold trap craters
strewn across the north pole —
slipping on a sweater — Jacob please,
you’ll catch a cold in a -400° chill —
and kicking up a plume of billion-year-old dust
because I can. Minus an atmospheric shield,
the particles take flight
into that dark dark space
like the paper airplane
Sam once snapped into a blacktop night.
Under a mountain of constellations,
I dig and sweat
in the glow of my headlights
breaching those
dethroned shadows.
At last, my shovel gives way.
I bend down to splash the familiar
across my face — like a Frog Pond
awakening under a ruthless Boston sun —
but I must gather myself as the man I am.
Breathe now. The shadow divide breaks my eyes,
a beauty I cannot pocket
while kissing Maddy’s strained face,
wolfing down an oven-hot pot roast,
and handing over the sloshing water
in the morning. I light a smoke
before the skyline’s embrace, the sun
burning a roasted particle land.
About the author:
Keith Mark Gaboury earned a M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College. His poems have appeared in such publications as Poetry Quarterly, New Millennium Writings, and on the podcast Who Do You Think You Are? Keith is a poet and preschool teacher in San Francisco, California.
Art: Le rideau by Jerome Romain
In the artist’s words:
Of all of life’s images, what do we have left? This feeling, this impression that Proust described so well; the irradiant detail that we are incapable of seeing, to fixate on a moment in time and carry the true essence of things. This is the exact view that Jerome Romain has on objects, scenes and people of today. He reveals beauty, the beauty that seems banal and does not differentiate between tragedy and happiness. The quality of his research techniques could have driven him toward hyperrealism. This is precisely where lies the difference; he does not paint the subject, he paints meticulously and methodically, the subject’s aesthetic reasoning demanding traces, tensions… and this ever so particular light towards the masters. Le Cavarage, Vermeer, De La Tour and most recently Hopper, which Romain comes close to, in his latest works, through cinematic framing. Brushing aside the reality of verbiage and pathos, Jerome Romain’s work unveils his poetic dimension.
Jérôme Romain(FR) https://www.jeromeromain.com/
