Spell Against Impermanence from cherylgross on Vimeo.
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Spell Against Impermanence
By Kim Addonizio
Faeries, gryphons, wrens, blue roses.
Cartoon girls in impish poses.
Isis. Sanskrit text. Chinese.
Snake eyes. Marijuana leaves.
Skulls. Knives. Hellhounds. Scorpions.
Tygers. Harpies. Gangrened demons.
Lover leave and child abort.
Brother’s liver dredge in dirt.
Steep in piss and shit and pain
father’s corpse and mother’s brain.
Fire feed, and ash inhale—
heart lash to the breaking wheel—
Lightning. Lotus. Chameleon.
Slide the needle deeper in.
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Artist’s Statement: Using tattoo imagery, Kim Addonizio’s poem “Spell Against Impermanence” is an incantation that calls out a few demons and asks in the end to “slide the needle deeper in.”
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Cheryl Gross is an illustrator, writer, motion-graphic artist, living and working in the New York/Jersey City area. She is a professor at Pratt Institute and Bloomfield College.
Cheryl received her MFA from Pratt Institute. Her work has appeared in numerous films, TV shows, publications, and graces the walls of many corporate and museum collections including: The Body Electric, Fort Collins, Colorado, 2013,Filmpoem, Scotland, 2012, International Short Film Festival, Berlin, 2012, The Zebra International Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, 2012, 35th International San Francisco LGBT Film Festival, 100 New York Painters, Schiffler Publishing, Riverside Museum, Riverside, Ca., USA, The Museum of The City of New York, Mississippi Museum of Art, The New York Times, Comedynet.com, Associatedcontent.com, Current TV, Laforet Harajuku Museum, Tokyo, Japan, and Artist-In-Residency, Kunstlerhaus, Saarbruken, Germany.
Her illustration credits include; Jimmy Stewart and His Poems, Crown Publishing, Circe, Lowbrow Press, Becoming Judas, Red Hen Press, In The Circus Of You, Rose Metal Press, and The Z Factor, which she has written and illustrated.
Photo By: Marcin Bajer
