1993
Dream as Jürgen Baldiga
Artefact: Catalogue for the exhibition ‘Jürgen Baldriga — Fotografien’, in Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 1997, produced three-and-a-half years after Jürgen’s death in December 1993.
Jürgen’s dreaming eye looks through a cut-out window of grey card
Sliced with a knife
Everything framed
Off square
In proportion
Everything in gritty black and white
Not technicolour
In a raw state
A versioned life
Distilled
Slid out in a slick of black
Wrapping around the edge, glossy
Deep universe void
Inside
Brains on fire
One damp eye
Stars, scars
Grass and light kissing short shorn hair
Soft fingers grazing pale skin
Dark witch-hand reaching to the lips
Almost caressing the sweet spot
The flash stripping everything but a long blond wig
Painted eyes
Hands catching modesty
Fading print on cotton
On cotton pillows
Soul portals
Flung outside on a deckchair
A small thing tipping off as the world rotates
Hedgerows, brambles looming
Then
Chorizo shining in the sun
Emerging from
Entering into
Soft ass
Creamy egg-flesh
Corner cubicle scrawled with cursive script
Cock out
Chest bare
Porcelain gleaming
Grubby fingers
Grin
Ear studded
Laughing stripes of deep lash
Face smeared
Mouth slurping
Pausing to be seen in the act
To see being seen
Reined in
Hooked up
Reflected in the bouncing Altbau light
Cheese-plant tickling glass
Jeans, boots
Then
Plaited hair
Drawn brows
Fabric wrapped, fabric bowed
Breasts under biceps
Wallpaper striping behind
Down, down to the beneath
Rooftop angel in slicked black legs
Sneakers grimed in shards of earthly filth
Legs off
Legs tipping
Legs squatted, balancing
Run-over, flat
Flattened with the rest of the poor body
Then
On knees
On the path
In the undergrowth
Waiting for you
Suckling hard
Hard-on
Bouncing in a cage of glass
Shards of time
Seven, eight nows
Bones in a bunker
Breathing
Resting on skin
Nestling into coats, hoods, quilting
Wrapped up in cowprint, fishnets
Stepping through to this life
Or back away
Then
An erection in blurred Y-fronts
Water spilling into the deepening bath
Where you sit old, future you
Seeing that
Seeing yourself back
Laughing, falling at that stupid notion
Starlight glancing off the jawline
Almost an eighties heavyweight
Pop star
Porn star
Knee hoiked high on timber
Old shoe
Stars dangling
Mouth greased open in a smirk
Then
Towelled head falling into flat flowers
Arms folding to reach each other in the cleft of a mountain
The looking eye
The broken casket
Collar high
Tube of reality rushing away in a sheen of windows
Ceiling tiles
Gleaming light on the bureaucratic walls
The endless offices of the Afterlife
Heavy bags dropped out of sight
Cheap prices
Cobblestones
Hair thinning
The last person seen
The streets empty otherwise
Nobody shopping here in this wasteland
Nobody stepping up into the dark doorways
That’s it, maybe
That’s the end
Unsatisfying
Sliced with a knife
Everything framed
Off square
In proportion
Everything in gritty black and white
Not technicolour
In a raw state
A versioned life
Distilled
Slid out in a slick of black
Wrapping around the edge, glossy
Deep universe void
Inside
Brains on fire
One damp eye
Stars, scars
Grass and light kissing short shorn hair
Soft fingers grazing pale skin
Dark witch-hand reaching to the lips
Almost caressing the sweet spot
The flash stripping everything but a long blond wig
Painted eyes
Hands catching modesty
Fading print on cotton
On cotton pillows
Soul portals
Flung outside on a deckchair
A small thing tipping off as the world rotates
Hedgerows, brambles looming
Then
Chorizo shining in the sun
Emerging from
Entering into
Soft ass
Creamy egg-flesh
Corner cubicle scrawled with cursive script
Cock out
Chest bare
Porcelain gleaming
Grubby fingers
Grin
Ear studded
Laughing stripes of deep lash
Face smeared
Mouth slurping
Pausing to be seen in the act
To see being seen
Reined in
Hooked up
Reflected in the bouncing Altbau light
Cheese-plant tickling glass
Jeans, boots
Then
Plaited hair
Drawn brows
Fabric wrapped, fabric bowed
Breasts under biceps
Wallpaper striping behind
Down, down to the beneath
Rooftop angel in slicked black legs
Sneakers grimed in shards of earthly filth
Legs off
Legs tipping
Legs squatted, balancing
Run-over, flat
Flattened with the rest of the poor body
Then
On knees
On the path
In the undergrowth
Waiting for you
Suckling hard
Hard-on
Bouncing in a cage of glass
Shards of time
Seven, eight nows
Bones in a bunker
Breathing
Resting on skin
Nestling into coats, hoods, quilting
Wrapped up in cowprint, fishnets
Stepping through to this life
Or back away
Then
An erection in blurred Y-fronts
Water spilling into the deepening bath
Where you sit old, future you
Seeing that
Seeing yourself back
Laughing, falling at that stupid notion
Starlight glancing off the jawline
Almost an eighties heavyweight
Pop star
Porn star
Knee hoiked high on timber
Old shoe
Stars dangling
Mouth greased open in a smirk
Then
Towelled head falling into flat flowers
Arms folding to reach each other in the cleft of a mountain
The looking eye
The broken casket
Collar high
Tube of reality rushing away in a sheen of windows
Ceiling tiles
Gleaming light on the bureaucratic walls
The endless offices of the Afterlife
Heavy bags dropped out of sight
Cheap prices
Cobblestones
Hair thinning
The last person seen
The streets empty otherwise
Nobody shopping here in this wasteland
Nobody stepping up into the dark doorways
That’s it, maybe
That’s the end
Unsatisfying