Status Updates From At the Louvre: Poems by 100...

“it’s a tremendous treasure hunt / rooting out the women’s twenty-five first names / in the Louvre / i open my eyes / looking / for us / us women / for you / you she-wolves of the Louvre” (the shadow in the painting by pauline delabroy-allard)

"'if you were compelled to burn down either the notre dame or the louvre, which one would it be?' without hesitation i answered 'notre dame because it is only a single image of god, while the corridors of the louvre light the whole world." (the lamp at the edge of the louvre by barbara chase-riboud)

"here i am charged with presences i look i breathe i dream and all of a sudden the cosmos catches its breath takes on a second skin i go straight into the heart of the world - until i'm utterly transparent the best of us know how dreams can bleed." (soutine solitude by zéno bianu)

"....yes, it was clichéd, but i felt brave, and let myself feel normal, like someone who belongs." (Salle 219 by Jay Bernard)

"paths hold more magic,/said my feet, than endings."

"you who pass by, don't shut your eyes into the dark night of the lens, look up, you who enter this symphony of sparks, plunge your head into the silence that a dream may murmur its secrets in your ear, and cast your eyes up to the summit of the drunken pyramid, you will see a wounded bird, its song the exact shape of my heart."

i ache for the ekphrasis, i pine for the art, i yearn for the paintings 👹