W. H. AUDEN and JURY DUTY
A friend recently shared with me W.H. Auden’s poem “STOP ALL THE CLOCKS” after the death of someone very important in my life -- where all the clocks stopped quite suddenly -- as did my world . . . but then kept ticking again, somehow leaving me behind, or at least a life I used to have with that person in it, behind . . . forever. The clock just kept ticking away, heedless to judge or jury, mechanized to some other internal ‘beyond worldly’ force . . . proverbially ticking away methodologically, tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock, oblivious to my grief, my loss, my sorrow . . . how about joy. Let me try being funny. Just please STOP! But no. Unstoppable.
"JURY DUTY" 1983, mixed media on bristol (from INFORMATION PAINTINGS SERIES)