These past couple weeks have seen my spiritual ruptures that brought me to my knees.
I was absent from my life and from even exhibitions that were calling for my presence. I had wondered, but not through forests, through the jungle of man that was Los Angeles.
My home became the cocoon of a new blooming idea that came from the death of a self that sat on my chest. An ego death, that was not my first. The casting out of the bad habits that kept me addicted to the unobtainable and inhabitable side to my spirit that no longer belonged in my home.
Night was created for FakeWhale’s “Art Market” exhibition
Do you know my name?
Do you know me?
For I am your mischief,
And there are none who call me master,
Only those I wish to make believe,
As you read in my diary.
Prophecy is writ on signs that are parades in your honor that my name will be there in less than score, but ten years.
And when they stitch my name above that frame where his once was,
It will my crown be framed.
I may break the glass of this mirror I stare into,
Like a screen in front of my visage that shows me untamed.
Breaking my reflection.
Simple has no place in the plotting journals of my rise to unimaginable fame and glory,
Unlike any that came before me,
Surprise the veil of my protection,
Deny their affections.
For I will paint their portraits no more,
But paint my own and say it is in their honor,
Let them think they hold the reins and catch their good favors as it rains.
Redact their language they one day learned for their own March,
To their own throne,
I will block their path with rocks and stacked toys and puppets that may dance,
Impossible to grab.
And pay credit to the master,
Though his likeness be not worth a penny.
Tend to those who have the countenance to be nice,
I wish I was one.
People think I am nice,
But I know not why,
Maybe it is because I have blue eyes.
But stare long enough into them,
And they stare back into you.
I am compelled to prove ~ to all and make the world my oyster that I might sup it clean.
For when I am immersed and supper was the world,
Then I dined as a fiend.
My celebrity will mask all, especially my subtle treachery.
Nice be my countenance and all the while success is written in prophecy.
False only to that smile that I bely,
May it seem an angel’s twinkle in my eye.
They may smoke the weeds,
I encourage them,
The places of sin be my dwelling places and I will gode them in.
They used riches as carrots strapped in front of mine possession and the dropping pennies I leave behind.
My tongue it speaks the language of different lands as I fit in one of the people,
Alike my fellow man.
And all those languages twist over one another but they tell the same story ~ a villain is who I am.
The snakes that I embody, allow them to turn about my hands.
Conspire this system to my favor,
A villain's tapestry,
My life unfolds,
A web of twisted threads where darkness binds.
Devils lurk at every turn,
Ready to punish for deeds both foul and dire.
Is this the price of power?
An endless, burning pyre?
I shall not shine too bright in the sunlight and my glimmer will flash rage in their squinting eyes,
And alike them too,
Should I see a shine glimmering in the water
Step on it before it gets too bright,
Make sure it drowns.
For they will reign me in,
And strap those carrots to my chin.
I will be grateful for the whip upon my skinny hide,
It’s my memory I was more vicious than you, my poison more potent and my strength more sturdy.
My oak trunk didn’t move an inch each time you pushed and pushed and tried so hard to push.
I bade my time, did you know what cauldrons I had in the fire?
Or did you just assume?
For who did you think it would not end well?
As your crown rocks back and forth at my feet,
All I need do now ~ is reach down,
Time is my friend,
Not yours,
And time will unfold,
Whether you like it or not.
When did he claim to be gracious or nice,
Do you remember?
Come closer,
Get to know me,
Because one day I will learn,
How to feel remorse,
Because I am not finished yet.
Cinematic poetry by Laurence Fuller
Original poetry and performance by Laurence Fuller
Visuals & Music aided by AI by Laurence Fuller
Minted for FakeWhale’s “Art Market” exhibition
@laurencefuller
When that purge of the compulsive relationship is bound to an imaginary self, and the two feed off eachother. And it’s when that purge begins that the devil makes his last bid for your soul.
Day was created for FakeWhale’s “Art Market” exhibition
Yesterday I found myself on my knees in front of where a cross once hung in my home.
It is an old converted church that now has its seats as empty thrones,
That my only hope is surrender.
That I can find a paradise in this life,
To be good while hazard folks that walk and tred with me across my wounds that bleed,
If I could only run to beauty and to know that road which is clear in its guidance.
My heart tells me it is by the air on the wind,
I cannot find the right answer in any of the gargoyles in my way it’s only,
Beauty will come hurtling towards me.
Beauty’s in the garden of the Kingdoms that were before their time.
It was too her voice that sent whispers to my heart that was an uncontrollable tremor in the bliss of unending splendor.
The years were caught,
In a hanging loop on the unknown that wrapped around my foot and pulled me up to the ceiling.
I tried and tied the knots around my legs and wished it was a plot of libels instead.
But those ringing bells around my head they clanged a different sound I knew that was a rupture,
That all my sound, and all my ears received through my body and my toils of worry.
But they were the echoes of that reflection I could only crack with my sword in swooping silver.
I walked home barefoot on a road of light.
It cast out every demon from my path at night and I was down the road of sound and hope.
At distant shores she was not one but many until beauty met me on that road.
Barefoot I walked,
Mild were my clothes,
Opportunities came not from the celebrities
But from the mild mannered that I met,
Who marked the wood I carried with something good,
Something from the fruit they plucked with their own hands.
Those who once and still deny my will,
Now carry my steps home to Victory.
Cinematic poetry by Laurence Fuller
Original poetry and performance by Laurence Fuller
Visuals & Music aided by AI by Laurence Fuller
With some painting references by Stephanie Fuller
Minted for FakeWhale’s “Art Market” exhibition
www.laurencefuller.art
@laurencefuller
The illusion of the Master, is that they are one. This assumption of power is a precarious position to take. Because while the lion prowls proudly in their fields, they inevitably come upon a snake, who by all appearances is much smaller and more meek than the lion. According to Aesop should the lion choose to bat the snake with its paw, the repercussions echo much louder than a lion’s roar.
Lion & Snake was exhibited at Art Basel, 2024.
There was a lion that never learned how to use its teeth or its claws, At the first shadow of a snake it jumped and mewed and pawed, Shaking inside, just a frightened little mouse, But that shadow was just a stick, how silly he looks, how ridiculous, The lion sighs, “I never needed to learn how to fight, Upon my flesh a simple stick will not bite,” The lion laughed and rested for the night, Dreaming away and drifting through memories, In front of him a whole circus he sees. He saw himself a great ringmaster, all around they dance and sing, He held a hat and a cane, And truly believed it was for him they sang. “When I wake up, I will be the one holding the stick” He believed. But when morning broke those singers turned to birds in the trees. And it turned out it was not for him at all that music was playing. In anger he roared, “Where’s my stick?!” He sauntered over and picked it up, hoping to reclaim his cane. But wait, it was more scales than he had imagined, not hard at all. It was the snake after all, and it bit deeper with a poison that felt like fire coursing through his veins, more pain than he had ever imagined, his blood turned to flames. The lion roared… and then… collapsed. The bird’s songs went on, and day past into night and time passed. The snake had waited for its chance, throughout the night, It did wait and wait for the lion to grab the bait. Adapted from the fable by Aesop ~ by Laurence Fuller @laurencefuller
In Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, the wizard Prospero subjugates the native creature Caliban to a life in a shadows. Though he teaches him language, what Caliban does with that language, for better or worse is his choice.
Created in collaboration with Von Doyle.