Dean Pasch on Poets Cafe

The following interviews of Dean Pasch by Lois P. Jones originally aired on KPFK Los Angeles (reproduced with permission and thanks to producer Marlena Bond).

Artist Statement—Dean Pasch

“I am drawn to the idea that being-ness is revealed by its disappearance … that invisibility is a metaphor for silence … and that silence is another way of holding one’s breath for a good time to breathe.”

Bio

Dean Pasch is a poet and artist–born and bred in England, he has lived in Munich, Germany since 1990. He pursues life as art, in whatever ways are possible, writing, drawing, creating palimpsests and making films. His work has featured in Mannequin Envy, Niederngasse, Tiferet and Quill & Parchment. He has also presented his poetry and visual work in a Los Angeles tour, including readings at Moonday (Village
Books) and Beyond Baroque.

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The Metaphysics of Ice Cream

My son asks me
where the waves come from.
The logic of wind and water
well up in my mind.
I ignore this.

I tell him the waves are God,
showing us endlessness.

The surf reminds me
of nothing, and this is good.
There is no mediation
of simile, no translation
through metaphor.

This is a direct nothing,
like when I succeed
in not thinking too little,
and not thinking too much;
when waves of spirit
wash onto the shores
of my experience.
Words in my thoughts
and thoughts in my words
disappear.

If I were to compare surf and waves
to anything,
it would be to the state of not knowing
if a dream is real or not,
if reality is a dream
or not.

It is this condition of oscillation,
this ebb and flow of knowing,
and not knowing,
that tightens the knot
and unties it.

My son drops
beneath the white froth.
He didn’t need an answer,
But he enjoyed asking.

It’s good to ask questions
and not need answers,
to give answers
and not need logic.

He resurfaces
and we go for an ice cream.

This is the metaphysics
I am comfortable with.