The Catskills Above the Catskills (Ptolemaic Visions)
Introductory Note
by Tamas Panitz
I’m writing this introduction to The Catskills Above the Catskills, for due to its phantasmal pastoral content, someone unfamiliar with Dunlap’s work might mistakenly believe that she actually looks up at the stars at night; she certainly does not.
Dunlap is a natural.
Saying one is a natural in nature is like saying you get wet in water –– unless, like me, you don’t. I am emphatically unnatural in so-called nature.
Nature is defined by contradistinction. It’s what must have been here before the bridge we built; the stream and its banks which meant less than nothing to us, because we couldn’t even see to talk about them.
Nature is not very interesting –– indeed, it infuriates me. Nature is pre-intelligible in the worst way –– it is unintellectual. I only wish to see it when blessed by cities, even invisible ones, stretching forever through primeval wood.
When I think of the ‘naturalness’ of a poet, how she turns out to be a great slugger, I become interested in precisely that which I hate about nature itself: that she does not seem to know about her poetry. Nevertheless, like some carefully landscaped park or idea, it elaborates an internal magnificence.
Dunlap’s process is not foreign to her, not distanced by intellectual probes. While her work is clearly learned in a romantic and funny way, her intellect is in the service of a desire to translate this pre-intelligible landscape, for the first time. Always for the first time.
Dunlap seems unable to scheme. Her own lies startle her with their genius.
We only call someone a natural in game: baseball, curling, music, poetry. Dunlap is a natural in language –– that unnatural Being! Like the stupid stream after it has been blessed with the propinquity of some villain’s dwelling, she is immediate and evident; she belongs to higher things, an aesthetic existence, culture even. She’s from New Orleans.
I know that I am mortal by nature and ephemeral, but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch the earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia.
-Ptolemy (born circa 100 ad)
I want to follow the paths of the stars, I tell myself. But this is not true. I want them to follow me. After all, the Earth is the center of the universe, and, as I am the center of the Earth, the universe revolves around me. I lie in my bed and watch it glow. Watch it go. Thousands of string lights and carousels, whirling in the night sky; paper lanterns and neon signs; the Panna II Garden restaurant in the Lower East Side — those oil pickled mangoes preserving the sun. I love the lights in the sky. They dazzle us and make us think of water. Of sources, springs, the Life-Giver. Great Zeus, Gatherer of Clouds. The sun and Apollo — how aren’t they the same? Perhaps all can be reduced to chromatics, to color. Blue versus yellow versus green. The night sky is black to my eye, and, because my eye sees it as such, so it must be.
*
I emerge out onto the planisphere. Last night Mars was as close as it’s going to be for two years, and I meant to go check it out, but I didn’t; I guess I just forgot. Looks like Jupiter’s in Sagittarius again, and the almanac never lies. That’s why I love it so much. It’s coalesced. I hang it by its hole above the brick oven in my mind. It dangles on a nail, and is the centerpiece of the kitchen. I enter the kitchen after dark; I’ve been out collecting herbs, or doing work. My grandmother has got the fire blazing, and the whole room is hot and full of smoke. She encourages me to keep studying, but I take over the cooking when she looks like she’s getting tired. We read about the planets. We discuss the higher arts. She is proud of me, and together we roll up spiced rice in squash blossoms. It is the end of the summer. We are sweating. I don’t know who I am, but someone does.
*
Mars is hanging out by the ocean tonight. He’s dipping his toes in the water. He looks out over the ripples, and is feeling sorry for himself. He sees great orcas dipping into the sky, silently, and, without making a splash, secret themselves back again into the silvery black depths. He thinks, There must be many kinds of whales. Of all sizes, inhabiting every corner of the Earth. He thinks, I am a god, why do I not know of these whales? And for this reason he positions himself near to the ocean tonight, to soothe the longing he has for something he has never claimed as his own, a chance he missed out on, something he never got around to learn.
John Devlin, Untitled, 2016, Mixed media on paper, 27.94 x 21.6 cm. private collection. Courtesy of the artist.
*
The booksellers of the galaxy live very near to the Dragon. On this evening they are almost out of sight. I look up and see but a faint violet glow where I know they probably are. The grass in this field has grown long, and it tickles my ankles. I think of velvet in the plants. Covered with dew, filled with insects, it itches. The Dragon is not someone I want to know. He is flanked on all sides by booksellers, and for this I am grateful. They wear violet robes with yellow collars, as per their guild. They look as the night sky itself: yellow dazzles on purple, white pimples on black. They are clean and smell of interiors. They along with the Dipper are corralling this Dragon, keeping him in check. He is trapped between the kitchen and the library. But the dragon knows his way around the house in the dark, and he stays up very late. Little does he know, I stay up late too. And I walk around with a frying pan in my hand.
*
Paris is the center of the universe. Oh sorry, I meant Polaris. Paris is not big enough for the number of kings who inhabit this great City of Thought. For yes, the universe is a city, largely, and not a chasm, tho it contains many chasms within it. Many holes back into Chaos. The architectures we see in the sky can be found on every part of Earth, as well as Heaven and Hell. In Midsummer, my grandfather told me, the little bears return to Paris, as champions returning home, and when the children sneak outside at night, away from the watchful eyes of their parents, they can see them conducting the same rites they’ve performed for millennia, ever since Paris was but a stone in a hand. The fountains overflow, and, as if by a miracle, there are no people in the streets.
*
And so the little crabs knelt by the seaside, while the scientists who observed them were moved to tears. They ransacked their car and poured all the vials of fluid they had collected back into the sea. The sky was bright that night, but even so, the crabs paid the scientists no mind. The moon like the origin of all marble sculpture hung full and heavy over the sea, as if to tempt human hands into action. Into creation and destruction. How anyone has ever been able to sleep while in view of the moon eludes me, and upsets me. I am kept awake by its crab-call, its humming. I lie tired and unsettled inside the mosquito nets hung around my bed. The windows are left open to let in some of this tropical air, and the moon sneaks inside also. He shines on my bed, oceanic and grinning. I’d prefer to sleep in a cave, I think, and let the mosquitoes consume me while I dream.
John Devlin, Bellini’s Norma, 2016, digital file, dimensions n/a. Collection the artist. Courtesy of the artist.
*
Crabs crawl up the arms of heroes who spangle the sky like mirrors. Their words are forgotten, but their bodies are forever.
*
Across the hill from where the sisters live there is a valley lived in by lynxes. The lynxes line the lining of my coat. They purr when they smell my perfume. They come out when they hear the sea. They hear the sea rumbling and crashing gently onto the sand, and they extricate themselves from my lining. They line up along the shoreline, and they lap at the crashing waves. They play with each other and wrestle in the reeds and dunes. They ascend large rugged rocks with their skillful feet; they pull mollusks out of the sand. They greet passing ships with their flanks. They shiver. In the salty air they stretch. They do flips in the sand. They don’t care what time of day or night it is; they don’t care if I’m a god or not. They just want to bounce around in the sand. So I let them. And they let me reside, recline, for a moment on the beach while the wind blows my hair-perfume off, and the sun descends… I watch my lynxes make mummies in the sand.
*
Serpents of course pull themselves into themselves. I overindulge, once again, on the velvety milk that lies between me and you, every second that I remember you. I am on a bus in a foreign country. I am a snake with multiple moving parts. I am oversimplified, stylistically, and I love you. Please don’t leave me at a gas station between universes. I sit by myself, out of myself, on a hard plastic chair, and I hope somebody will take me home. The stars tell me they are swirling more than usual tonight, just to make fun of me. I walk out to the rampart blockading the sea, and I realize it would not be appropriate for me to jump in. I think, Love is very old. And, as I’m thinking this, hundreds of churches erect themselves in the quiet countrysides this night, breathing, as I am. If only I could see them.
John Devlin, Untitled, 2016, Mixed media on paper, 21.6 x 27.94 cm. private collection. Courtesy of the artist.
*
I have a book about whales that illustrates, in color, every species, and details their size by sex, as well as their lifespan, coloration, geographical range, diet, and everything one might desire to know. My book covers both whales and dolphins. Some of them are pink; some of them are shaped like garbage trucks; some of them plow snow in the winter for an extra couple thousand dollars so they can buy new cars come springtime. They don’t have much to do with the fish, who exist violently, and surround them. They much prefer to torment Mars, the great god we all know, and make him feel like he’ll never be good enough. I don’t like this so much, but I’ll let them do it, because what could I possibly do to stop them?
*
I caught my grandmother digging up onions early this morning, when I got up for once before noon. I had to stop her. She’s too old to be doing this kind of thing. I said, Sometimes, grandma, you just have to wait for me to wake up, and I’ll dig up all the onions by myself. Just give me a couple hours; is it so hard to wait? I like digging up the onions, but I’m not going to wake up before ten at the earliest, so just read the paper or something, please. Don’t make it my fault when you break your back. Then I apologized, and I kissed her and made her some coffee and spaghetti. I stir-fried a bunch of onions with tomatoes and celery and whatever else we had lying around, and it smelled delicious. She said, I see I’ve taught you well. I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself, for protecting your family, and for cooking such a delicious meal.
*
Yesterday I baked a leek and feta tart, and when I opened the oven there were two of them. Is that what happens when you leave something in the oven long enough? The sky is full of dancing figures, but none of them I know. That’s how I felt when I brought my tart into the dining room to serve. There were many people in there waiting, but all of them were strangers. Where was my little horse? My bucket of water? My silvery seashells? Everyone said my tart was delicious, and then a big man with an important coat and mustache stepped forward and presented me with a puppy. Everyone cheered, as if I had won a prize. I had to pretend like I wanted it, and I thanked him, thanked them all. I wanted to throw it onto the interstate. That night, I was woken up by sirens from all directions, whizzing past my window, and it was alarming because I live in the woods.
John Devlin, A Game of Badminton, 2016, digital file, dimensions n/a. Collection the artist. Courtesy of the artist.
*
The motions of the heavenly bodies occur no matter what state of mind one’s in. I’m depressed, on a long pink couch, and you’re ordering chicken satay. The sky rises like a mocking halo behind beyond and within my mind. I don’t want to look outside tonight; I want to lie within my own jurisdictions. My sanctioned explorations. I see you out there, shooting deer on a night like this, and hate myself. I see you rounding up your dogs. I hear you swearing. I see your mouth move underneath your beard and I want to rip off your beautiful big lips. And kiss them. And say I’m sorry. And maybe I’ll keep them close to my heart, forever. Or maybe I’ll throw them in with the onion peels when making a broth. But probably not.
*
Every night, everything’s already changed, before I’ve even had a chance to look up. My eyes are failing. The triangles are plummeting into the ocean. The triangles are green. I see groups of sisters, dancing around or rejecting the triangles. The ram is small compared to these groups of sisters. I think of my favorite bakery back home, and their flawless baking momentum. How they moved those loaves of bread. How late I’d always get there, and how they’d only have one left. The sisters are not convinced of my intentions; I’m not either. They shake themselves at me and tell me my dresses will never be good enough, never appropriate. I take refuge in this. I am happy to be a wretch washed up on their sheets. I mean their shores. A wench wearing sheets as a dress. My body is the sky, and I am my own favorite sister, I tell myself, through my tears.
*
The rigid locus of the sky tonight is an onion. A man exposed himself to me, so I took him in my hand and twisted him. Or rather, I should have. Instead of inviting him inside like he was the ocean, and I didn’t have anything better to do than go swimming on a warm summer’s day. A day when the cattails shone brightly. When the cypresses were there and the turtles and nutrias and lizards warmed themselves on fallen logs. I don’t care about much when I sit on my stump, just a few old animals. Blinking distantly into the mist, as if there were a mountain for them, too, to tempt them into doing stupid things as I have. Walking into an ocean in the dark, climbing a mountain alone, making friends with the moon when you have already pissed him off.
John Devlin, Untitled, 2016, Mixed media on paper, 27.94 x 21.6 cm. private collection. Courtesy of the artist.
*
I didn’t notice when the sky closed its eyes. I was walking home, meeting the neighbors for a second to get a bag of their Christmas spiced almonds, and the smell of the pines was overwhelming. I couldn’t find the house. Perseus was walking his dogs, and suddenly they broke off and ran away. The pinecones were furiously shedding. Many women were there. I drew back the rich cloth of time. I was back to myself, drawing on an old sheet of blank newspaper something I’d thought about in a dream. I’d just gotten back from the corner store. It was Mardi Gras. I was going to jail. I didn’t care. I had my grandma’s car, and I knew how to drive. I took us far from that place, deep into the swamps. You were safe with me then, and you had a long pole. The vegetable markets were flooding. We were prepared to go fishing, and we had a bright house on the bayou waiting for us. Big fishes latched themselves to our docks with their mouths, and we floated right by them in our inner tubes.
*
How late will I stay up in order to see you, o crabs who kneel by the seashore? Who bow so elegantly by the water that rises up to your knees that you so shyly ignore and walk away from, and then invite back towards you again. Little white crabs the same color as the sand. Who invites you into the moon, who does not invite me? You multiply yourselves and then single yourselves out. You run from me when I chase you with my flashlight on the beach after midnight, and you’re everywhere. Maybe I just need to leave Alabama. Maybe you’re trying to get rid of me, because you can’t welcome your queen properly until I leave. You can’t show me the tools of your creation, which made you and with which you make the beaches of the world and of the mind. And so you’d just like me to leave. I’ll leave your pincers in peace. Your delicate instruments that intimidate me, glowing so silently under the moon, the moon that was never mine to begin with.
*
I don’t want to do this, the doe says to the hunter. Neither do I, the triangle says to the field. But I do, the rabbit says to the hound. As do I, says the fish to Mars, who is kneeling by a pond outside a village somewhere far away from here. Somewhere near your home, where he knows he can go inside for a warm drink and a fluffy robe when he gets tired of swimming in the pond, where he can sit and talk about things that he would never talk about anywhere else. There are raisins on a platter and roasted nuts. Mars considers the surface of the water, which ripples when he touches it with his thick finger, and he imagines that it is trying to tell him something. He tires, as he knew he would. He puts on his rubber shoes. This was not what he was meant to do. He doesn’t feel like doing much of anything these days. He kills his horse. He apologizes to the king. He walks out of the village and wonders what highways they even were that brought him to this place, and where the twisted roads are that will bring him back. The deep boughs of the oaks bend so far in front of the street signs that he thinks he will never find his way home.
John Devlin, Beatrice and the Empyrean, 2016, digital file, dimensions n/a. Collection the artist. Courtesy of the artist.
*
I am beyond rescuing, the ancient whale says to the god. I am a pair of pincers pointing towards death. I am sheep-shearing shears, rusted in the rain and left in a barn for a hundred years. I am a pair of boots that don’t fit anymore. I’ll swim underneath this iceberg and be forgotten about, he says. And Mars moans, No, I will blow up these icebergs for you. I am a god, if not of whales then of bombs. I can get rid of them for you. I can illuminate your old trails. I can pry open your grottoes with light. I think. I hope. I am not god of everything, but I am of some things. I know not why they call me Mars but that is my name. I have large hands, but they still get cold when I hold big blocks of ice for a long time. I like to have sex for many hours at a time, but I do eventually get tired. I am an iron pick driven into the place you need to go. I am finely crafted. I belonged to your grandma, and now I belong to you too. I do occasionally enjoy lovely music, and I’d like to be dominated, at least once. I’ll wake you up, and keep you awake. And I’ll be there when you for some reason think you should stop running. My eyes will never stop looking at you, even long after I’ve ceased to.
*
To begin, I found myself somewhere I had never been before. This is the beginning to all my stories. I was sitting on the ground. I said: This is it. No longer will I worship a god who isn’t real. But how am I to know who is here, and who isn’t? Great happenings are occurring all the time, this I know, but I can’t seem to find an end to anything. So who will it be? And the sky said, How dare you think it be so neatly wrapped. For it is in fact so neatly wrapped. And the specter forged some shining frost that manifested in the night, in anticipation of the morning, and dared me to breathe.
*
I am sitting on the ground once again. I see my words form in front of me before I have even started speaking. Like otters in the Catskill Creek. Like fisher cats, like fishermen, the sky assumes new shapes before I have a chance to catch my breath. I exit the pizza parlor and look up. I drive for many hours every day, and I look up. The weekend has begun. The clouds have dispersed. The rain has come. I take a breath of a moment that will never be here for me again.
John Devlin, Untitled, 2017, Mixed media on paper, 27.94 x 21.6 cm. private collection. Courtesy of the artist.
*
Why come to me now, after I’ve gotten ready for bed? After I’ve finished with my man? Why come to me now and declare that you have something new to say? I lean against the bookshelves in my grandmother’s house. I was awake then, and I felt free to browse among her books. There were paperbacks with pictures of seashells in them; I liked those a lot. Why now? As I’m reading in bed in my stinky T-shirt, poorly, and not waiting, like I usually am, for the god to come — why now? In glowing new forms, to remind me of the many mountains that breathe outside my bedroom, thinking about me, right now. Perhaps they have nice streams that I can slide down. I am something slightly more than a flooded street with many canoes upon it.
*
Some camels form triangles around the sisters. I drink my pear juice in peace, and think of the liquidity of the universe. Bouts of fog cloud my vision as they settle into the mountains.
*
Orion has come up, and the world looks different now. I make the sacrifices necessary for my survival. By my survival I mean my existence among the stars, the means at my disposal that I use to make Cassiopeia love me. She sees through my triangles. She sees me straight through to my Pleiades. I don’t see her, though, and I once again embark on the late-night road down the mountain, twisting and turning thru the olive groves, the hemlocks, the smoking junipers, to the gulf, or the creek, where I know someone will be waiting for me. Even if that someone sometimes is me. The whales are large down here, under the moon, though the moon is not visible tonight — someone’s stolen it — and the foxes make love under its absence, cackling. I call a cab because I want to get back to my hotel. Unfortunately, I don’t speak the local language, so the cab driver and I just make signs to each other all night.
*
Is there a constellation for the alligator? For I know the alligator walks, irreverently, across the sky and the earth, and everywhere in between, knowing he will be alive long after us. The alligator eats triangles for breakfast, and he has manifested them in his tail. The bull has nothing on the alligator. They confront one another, the bull bows, and the alligator waddles along on his way. He encounters the purple void; he makes use of it. He bites into the violet cloud-cover. It tastes good, like the swamp on an ordinary night. He settles into it like going to sleep on a golf course. The moon has dissolved into mist, and the mist hangs over the holes. The alligator is unique in the fact that he is never quite awake (like me) and never truly asleep. The violet breath of the evening envelops him, and he becomes even more engorged. He debates slipping into the water for the night, or staying adrift on the shore. He winks at Orion, who shoots an arrow off into the sky in his honor. They have an agreement. As Dionysus and Ceres, lovers outside of the cave, for all time. The night settles in with the whistling of the cicadas, and the alligator makes an executive decision to close his ancient eyes.
*
Meanwhile, I’ve been riding in a very small car down a very narrow road for sometime, down a comparatively small mountain. I could call it Parnassus, I could call it Overlook, and people argue over whether it’s a hill or a mountain. I don’t care. I’m just along for the ride. I love it. At every turn I can see the blazes of some small town flickering in a corner of the topography, whispering, Isn’t it me that you want? Why isn’t it? I don’t know. What town will triangulate itself to my topography? I am free, finally, and the wolves bound out of the distance into my vision. They chase me down the mountain, and I’d be afraid, were I not in a tiny car. I don’t have a gun, but I can drive faster than they can run. They are harder to confuse than an alligator. An alligator can be easily outwitted (like me) with a simple triangulation. Wolves are not like that. They are like fish the way they fornicate with the mountain, in schools of blue and violent green. Like a symphony they bound thru the countryside, and I am not ready for them — not like I’m ever ready for anything.
John Devlin, Medea casting a spell, 2017, digital file, dimensions n/a. Collection the artist. Courtesy of the artist.
*
At the bottom of the sky nearest the ocean there are fewer recognizable constellations, and far more restaurants and bars. There is a medieval fort that we’re all supposed to enjoy looking at. I just want to go to dinner. We walk along the rampart, and I think of myself as the sculptor. Who was it who was carving away at this primeval rock, making harbors for boats and policemen, so many centuries ago? Who was it fornicating in the bathroom? The bathroom being anywhere behind the rocks. Crevices built for cannons. I am several centuries too late, but I want you to take me. I have nothing but my hands to give you, within which you already live. A bull runs along the rampart where we are standing and stabs his horns into the ocean.
*
At some point Perseus barges in thru the door, and I demand, How did you get in here? He says, By virtue of my fragrant voice. Don’t you know, silly girl? He sits down on a broken flowerpot and ties his shoes. He lights a cigarette. I ask him for one, but he says he’s all out. He says, Pay attention to your clock! I say, Never. Leave me alone. He says, I was only kidding. Come, let me take you out on my boat. We can row out at night, when many small green things lift themselves up out of the water and make themselves known by their glowing. It’s quite a sight to see. Don’t pretend that isn’t what you’ve been waiting for someone to say to you all this time. If not me then someone else. Don’t kid me, You just want to see them glow. I know he’s right, and, to my surprise, I readily admit it. He says, That’s what I thought. And takes me under his wings.
*
Dogs I have never met before chase me as I race down the evening ramparts. They scream at me, telling me their names, but I don’t care about that right now. I’m in danger. The sky is as white as the ocean, and the ocean is as black as the moon. And the moon is as blue as my hands, because it’s freezing cold. I look up from my place on the seventeenth century stone promenade and see flashing green animals floating into the sky. Out of the water. Like millions of beetles, still slightly unformed original creatures. Light around the edges of them, forming constellations in the present, mountain ranges yet to be named, right in front of my eyes. Stars that just haven’t gotten far away enough yet to look like they’ve stopped moving. I pull down my pants to show my ass to the dogs who are still charging at me. Their vigor only increases. I am at the end of the promenade. I throw myself into the ocean.
John Devlin, Untitled, 2017, Mixed media, gold leaf on paper, 27.94 x 21.6 cm. private collection. Courtesy of the artist.
*
In his thirtieth year the crab came to terms with the fact that he was a triangle. He sat by the side of the ocean he called his home and sang out to it songs he had never heard before. The ocean was a gulf, not a big one, and there were lights from nearby villages dancing on top of the deep water. He wept and said the salt got in his eyes. He wondered when he started listening to the folk songs sung by the people wandering the beach at night, the singers at the waterfront cafes, so late, late at night. He rubbed his thumbs together. Nothing was certain anymore. He was as white as death, he realized, as white as the sand at midnight. As white on land even as he was in the sky, and he turned to look at himself, and he saw that he was surrounded by millions of other breathing beating beings, divine whisperings and whistling, and when he brought his eyes back down to earth and looked around, he could confirm that this was true.
*
When I’d finally crawled my way back to the part of the sky where I began, I saw that everything had changed. Where had been whales were now monoceroses, and where had been my winding trails down the mountain were wolf-hounds and firepits. I sat near one of them and tried to strike up a conversation with someone in the hopes of making a friend. It was easier than I thought. I remembered that I was a beautiful woman, and I would have to do an extra bit of work to discern who from this group would have something pleasant to contribute to my sensorium. This is always a disappointing revelation. I had with me some of the evil potion that Rip Van Winkle drank, and I had already consumed a lot of it. I peed behind the railroad tracks, and invited any man who was man enough to do so to come and watch me. They all came. Just before I was halfway done, I pulled a handgun out of my bra and shot three of them dead. There’s no better way to tell who’s destined to be with you and who’s not. The rest of my night was great — I sat by the fire, smoking and telling stories no one really wanted to hear, but I was going to tell them for as long as I was going to tell them, and delighted in doing so anyway.
October 2020
Preston-Potter Hollow, NY
John Devlin, The Moon in Pisces, 2017, digital file, dimensions n/a. Collection the artist. Courtesy of the artist.
