Alec Kowalczyk

Quayside Gallery


From among his paintings

leaning against the Seine seawall,

he reaches elbow-deep

into the open portal

of a chipped, vacant frame,

retrieving some windfallen apples

casually cached there for his lunch,


shattering a still life.



Trompe L'Oeil


... and then

there was that prolonged period

when he lay inside a darkened room,

illuminated only by the muted light

strained through an art- glass window.


The leaded panes were chaotic,

an abstract riot of planes and angles

projecting an unimaginable perspective in relief,

a microcosm of all the disorienting properties

associated with a classic optical illusion.


Looking at the window one moment,

he was conscious of being within as expected.

Without breaking his observation,

he would suddenly experience the unexpected,

an external viewpoint.


He was inexplicably without the dwelling,

bedded down on the inside,

simultaneously outside,

or so it illogically seemed,

an uncertain time ago.


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