Porn on the web: same word as woof and weave.
On this old tapestry, Mars and Venus swive.
On celluloid - substance made of a billion cells -
Theda Bara's bare nipples and Opium Hells
Are in black-and-white, and silent. "The engineer
Attempts to solve a problem: how can we hear?
How can we see in color?" a philosopher wrote,
"The artist has a different question: How to exploit
Silver shadows from Venetian blinds; black blood;
Silent explosion of a cannon near Keaton's head."
- Or, sawtooth outlines of aliens, bats and trolls
In early videogames. Wool knots; pixels; cells:
"-el" short for "elements" that make how things are made,
Of particles charged and refreshed at neural speed.
Speed was the thing for '30s headline writers,
Variety called movies pix, not "Motion Pictures."
(Instead of "Farmers, according to statistics,
Like films with urban settings" - "Hicks Nix Sticks Pix.")
So pixel plural and singular knits fixed vision
To pics in flux: either a seeming motion
Or the seeming stillness of a billion dancing dots
Choreographed like the tapestry's grid of knots
Dyed rose, blue, green in a map of subtle shades,
Soft edges melting precisely to depict the gods
Venus and Mars in the high-res Bayeux hanging:
Sex & Violence and Woman & Man: banging
For all they're worth in 10,000 little knots:
Visible up close as a grid of squarish clots
Where anti-alias threads smooth out the forms;
Visible from afar as texture that blurs but charms -
The coupled Gods embodied in an atmosphere
By the engine of art, the art of the engineer.
START
Pixel
