Issue 129

What’s a miracle,
though, but a moment
when the world works
well and unusually?

Learn to shut off that thing in you
that smiles when grace stammers into panic:
the triple axel ends in wipeout

I sometimes recall an old Catholic hymn that went: “The mass is ended / All go in peace / We must diminish / and Christ increase.”

A worthy ambition and a good way to spend a life, I’d say.

Dead heart, it hangs on a thin blue strap.

& what if you love the fire arrived and the fire escaped

For those who believe in providence, there may be little difference between a prairie fire lit by lightning and one lit by human hand: Either way, it accords with the divine plan.

Marcus Clarke’s practice surveys the affective and symbolic language of American Christian subcultures through aversion and desire. His sculptures, prints, films, and installations engage with kitsch and camp, using tactics of the attention economy and of post-cynical sincerity to investigate how Christendom haunts culture. He was interviewed by Ellie Driscoll.   Image: Much of your…

Objects that explain themselves make no demands.

Like mice we mess.

I could bleed flowers.