Irene Koronas

“1°,” “2°,” “3°,” “4°”

excerpts from Chiaroscuros  

Volume VIII, The Grammaton Series 

1°

The idiom horns

gesso the end of a line

a domain poureta

From residue it returns

language to neoochre

the surface picmodi

No grit grooves

the stub on the iron

oxide palette

The shields against evil

Bomvi, hematite

or iron ore

on a veil

on a mask restituée

persist as a parish

in misprision

or riss

in adequation

This steepwrink

secretes a scape 

2°

Mauveine the parasite

divide. The canvas lingo

from lemmata to parerga

from exergues to cartouche

links a contextual graft

The pigment ural

undertones by parergon

puts in place the cerne

attempts to decrypt

the phonic polylogue

n + voice

voice + van gogh shoes

overlap and chart

spidery black codes

with hot lapis between

the out and in

on virgin index cards

The appearance

bevels the question

what is art

The cultural plot

in retroscene and rhetoric

that overdetermines history

A hysterical edifice

to articulate

the neobaize

or those saturate scarlet

filigrees smear x + q

3°

The syntagm (etymon)

(un et nu). Polysemy

in tekhne hidden

behind multiplicity (art)

Opticks. Encoding the social

strata a russet confine

and a scarlet silt (wine dark)

melas (black) erythros (red)

pace divides the spectrum

in five slices of tricky pigment

in third terms (bluck)

(teleology) (sage) (dichtung)

(sprache) (nennen)

A (prime) circle changes

tochistes (gongorism)

(euphuism). Philos

detaches definition (hue)

Hues affright whiteness

the bisected symcolor

the eponymous albino

White has otherness

and it sluds the mix (murk)

Zinc oxide (or titanium)

accelerate rhythm

Still in a circle an internal

border. By invagination

the point then departs (telos)

encircles necessity

and traces itself around a gast

a ternary circulation

a somnambulist chirico

an arp watch shapes

between thick opaque

crystalline structures

Verdigris’ long sieve

dictates the unconscious

A conscious palladio

fetches the flat lead

form. Paddies redangle

4°

An azurite skeleton

is plastered ceruse

(white lead)

(red lead)

mixed with vinegar

The tomb remains fresh

A lemmatic corpse

in its own gauze

a backward bone

a fecund sinew

a naïve urn

the mortis leap

into a terracotta glaze

Lucifers sulfuric wings

polyconvulse in sateen

and lampas

postface the lesser

metaphysics

beyond callistics

the frame hangs

the ruption

the false avant-gardist

the abstract alter

explosive

in its static flux

Irene Koronas is an extreme experimentalist. Her The Grammaton Series includes gnōstos, Volume VII (BlazeVOX, 2023), siphonic, Volume VI (BlazeVOX, 2022), lithic cornea, Volume V (BlazeVOX, 2021), holyrit, Volume IV (BlazeVOX, 2019), declivities, Volume III (BlazeVOX, 2018), ninth iota, Volume II (The Knives Forks and Spoons Press, 2018) and Codify, Volume I (Éditions du Cygne, 2017).