How a Painting differs from a Poem: a Bow-Wow Shop investigation

 

A painting is an open mouth. A poem is a closed door.

 

There is no difference between a poem and a painting. Both are two-dimensional objects.

 

A painting exists to be displayed upon a wall in the world. A poem lives inside the dark catacomb of a book.

 

A poem talks out loud when prompted. When in masquerade, a painting only ever whispers.

 

A painting displays colour, life, movement. Whether or not it is alive itself is a moot point. A poem describes colour, life, movement. It is always dead.

 

A poem is made of crisp words. A painting is botched together from messy pigments.

 

A poem belongs to a category called time-based media.

A painting exists in an instant of time. It is not successive.

 

Each new poem is a re-writing of all other poems. Every new painting is a new thing. It represents the birth of a world.

 

A painting is an act of prolonged calculation. A poem appears unpremeditated, in an instant of time.

 

A poem can be encouraged to walk with you. A painting insists upon staying rooted to the spot.

 

When you look at a painting, it is always the same painting that you are looking at. A poem is forever changing. No matter how often you look at it, it is never quite itself.

 

A painting says to the onlooker: you there, me here. A poem says to the onlooker: me here, you absent.

 

The object of a painting is to delight. The purpose of a poem is to tell the truth about pure fabrication.

 

Paintings take pleasure in laughter. They are generally displayed in the company of each other. A poem barely acknowledges another poem, even when pressed between the pages of a book.

 

There is an incalculable number of paintings in the world. There is only one poem, and it has been divided time and time again by those who have struggled to claim it. Now it is quite tiny and bloody.

 

A poem is not a speaking picture because it is incapable of describing itself. A picture laughs out loud when it thinks of all the stories it could tell.

 

A painting is a product of humanity. God alone is responsible for the making and the unmaking of poems.

 

Paintings have been known to chirrup and whistle like birds. Poems are only capable of bellowing like bulls.

 

A painting is a public arena, an Italian piazza of sorts, with pigeons, ice cream vendors and unruly children hanging on the arms of tired, palely smiling, pregnant mothers. A poem is the most constricted of Venetian alleys, with an uncertain exit.

 

A painting is forever sipping at the first latte of the morning as it cheerfully savours its own meanings. A poem is furrowed of brow, and always busy with the dictionary.

 

A poem has been heard to say: who am I? A painting always asks: who are you? And: don't I know you from somewhere?

 

A poem is an eruption of the soul. The painting proceeds from the hand.

 

A painting loves to be alive. It gives praise for its own existence. A poem is a forceps-wrenched thing, dragged squealing into the world beneath grey skies. Its future is always so uncertain.

 

A poem is as old as its years. A painting is as young as the morning. Yesterday morning.

 

When the painting says to the poem, tell me what you see, the poem replies: show a modicum of patience. I haven't even listened to you yet.

 

A painting is a poem without words.