March 28, 2006

• 
  Project – drawing based on personal interpretation of the following passage:

  The Colonel (From The Country Between Us, by Carolyn Forche.)

  What you have heard is true. I
  was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His
  daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were
  daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon
  swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a
  cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls
  around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man’s legs or cut his
  hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor
  stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the
  table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a
  type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief
  commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some
  talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said
  hello on the terrace. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring
  groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like
  dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of
  them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water
  glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As
  for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves.
  He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of the
  wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the
  ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on
  the floor were pressed to the ground.

  Medium = Conté on charcoal.

  

  

  

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