Fred Schmalz is an artist and poet. His first full-length collection, Action in the Orchards (Nightboat Books), responds to encounters with dance, music, and visual art. His recent writing has appeared in Poetry, Conduit, and Oversound. His art collaboration with Susy Bielak, Balas & Wax, is currently in residence at Grand Central Art Center. With the Helsinki-based choreographic team Thar Be Dragons, they are part of Tanssin Talo's current SPARKS production development cohort.
www.fredschmalz.com and www.balasandwax.com
Day One
we stand our naked bodies
facing each other
snow is coming down
our journey begins
before daybreak
we will need blankets
gypsum pebbles
washed in an irregular
tin bowl
rice
we will feel compelled
to stop and relieve ourselves
at intervals
you will bleed into a feather
our cabin will tallow
its roof cave in a bit
one of us will require a bandage
at night we will
roast potatoes on a stick
then wrap ourselves in felt
satellites will
trace the heavens
coming slowly
into range
New Year’s Eve
leaning over a balcony railing
to shake the circular rug
of bread crumbs and seeds
gathered and shed
I have been thinking again
of how a year closes and another
sets out from home
in the lightest perceptible rain
nightfall comes slowly
the foxes that play in the roadway
and which I can see from here
trot off between houses
soon the shops will shutter
your daughters take spoons
to devour the cakes we brought
propped on round white plates
they remind me of
the palm-sized paving stones
we pocketed last night on our walk home
they are everywhere around us working
loose in the freeze the thaw the freeze
The price of bread
among women with women for eyes
cities rise and fall with the price of bread
in the time it takes
sound to arrive I move
about a hotel room
it has windows but the windows
look out onto other interior rooms
as much as I love its hearth I have
spent years acclimating to accoutrements
hung above the mantle animal trophies
flue drawing our fires
in a rush of air and danger
our bodies’ instincts
filigreed by touch and in my hunger
this moment to savor
requests I leave
the hotel for a diner counter
where I may accompany
a small knot of bread and bowl of soup
into the latest hour before
the earliest hour overtakes
FluxConcert
1. the concert hall is not a museum
it is an apartment house
surrounding a courtyard a fountain
where our neighbors sing indiscriminately
from the balcony railings accord
reached among tenants
who pulley love notes across like wash
the day’s last light
unrequited in its shadow-throwing
gathers at the foot of the steps
to honor the woman inside the cello
we offer an infinite Matryoshka
musical notes
full of love to bursting
we join with no idea what will happen
after the sun goes down
(the effect is giddying)
when at a great distance
you prop sticks into a circular furrow
an ember flies from the fire
as you lean into your neighbor’s ear
to let out a surge of air
2. move around
arrive early
walk through the courtyard
seed the footpath behind you
pause to plant tulip bulbs at the foot of the fountain
gather the neighbors
hold hands in a circle
feel pulses complement
(mine faint yours double-time)
split the night in two
lie on your back in the open cusp of one of its halves
remember this trajectory
(stick notes in your shirt to help)
exit a door labeled “This Is Not a Door”
keep going barely moving
learn by doing
remind me where we begin
3. save for later
to wait for neighbors
is to imagine in silence
an end to silence
and to see in one window
a bright lamp and a woman
her back to us ascending a stairwell
I find a piece of paper torn
watch it flutter down (long time coming)
leaving red in tiny fingernails
dear letters land in my lap
presents for you
a hole die-cut in a home
a harp laid to rest
before the incredible quiet returns
let me see your face
Foraging in the woods
for what am I the question
get home safe bring back food
I take place over hundreds of years
entering a glowing passageway
my branches digest the open air
leaving obscured the precise altitude
assumed when I fear the invisible
get home safe bring back food
what wild hand has me by the nape
until I cough up
reasons to provide milk a cord of wood
get home safe bring back food
how many have seen more with grace than
a spark coddled in tinder and kindling
leaves us at risk of sear
nature costumes the ear within
a radio playing into the courtyard
drones two stories about home
each one a different window
smoke enters get home safe…
a sick upside we simply can’t shake
suffering each other’s warmth
Acknowledgements
“Day One,” “The price of bread,” and “Foraging in the woods” appear in Conduit 30.
“New year’s eve” appears in Oversound 6.
“FluxConcert” was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for
the FluxConcert of its 2018-19 Fluxus Festival.