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Robert Cremean: THE PROCRUSTES TRILOGY: Martyrs Of The Cities Of The Plain
Detail from MARTYRS OF THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN, the Masculine Gestalt.
Below is a transcription of the words in the above image:
Our homeland is Diaspora. Scattered in the seed of strangers, we enter the cribs of our enemies to live uninvited lives. Our history is older than history rooted in the first stirrings of desire. We are the martyrs of the Cities of the Plain torched and murdered by our fathers' Father, we cling now to ropes of shadow wary of the son. We are the unexpected: the babe in the bulrushes, the wind in the willows, the cowbird’s egg. We are that which defines recognition…the question that serves no answer. Embraced or exiled, our name is anarchy. We are the sons and daughters of slaves. Born into servitude, we fit no uniform. Patterns of behavior cannot suit us. We hang naked on hooks of shame, shrouded in the smoke of premonition. How came we to die? What circumstances force this unrelenting purgatory? Ask Lot. Ask Abraham. Ask god himself. If he answers your prayers, does he not proclaim his victories? Holocaust! Our cities were assaulted by fire. Men, women and children raped and sodomized by fire. The unborn boiled in the womb. Infants roasted in their cribs. What monster claims this victory…this genocide? Holocaust! Our feet were pierced with flame. Great spouts and gouts of it ashed the plain with bone and hair. The tongues went in unto every entry of our flesh. We were crucified by pain. Holocaust! What hypocrite claims this victory? Abraham who fucked his sister? Lot who fucked his daughters? God gazed full upon the cities of the plain; for these he winked and nodded…. Our fathers were born from the ashes of the plain. Man created in God’s image created by men created from the guilty seeds of incest rooted in the ashes of the plain. We who are the martyrs of the plain proclaim your birth! What guilt shapes this deflection….Disciples of incest and adultery, from what lofty height do you view the plain? How come you to judge? We are all the sons and daughters of whores. Your god is your greatest sin. You have created him in your image to punish and forgive the sins that men have created. Is this not madness? A super-father who chides and protects you while diminishing his enemies even unto eternal damnation. Is this not childishness? And if you have created him in your image to create you in his is he not also a child? You have created a world for boys…a place of perpetual naivety unsuitable for innocence. A world of fear based on enforcement of privilege by a brotherhood in the name of the Father. Three brothers claiming the birthright of the Father; two born out of incest and one from adultery. Three little bully-boys who control their reality through force and threat…a triad of divine hypocrisy. Murdered by our fathers in the name of the Father, we, the martyrs of the plain, accuse you. From what seed stems your root? Your declination bears the taint of incest…might you be mad? Might you be blind? Paranoid? What defects define your heritage? Centuries of inbreeding from brother and sister to father and son and son to father…might you be mad? Might you be deaf…unable to hear the cries of the earth…blind to the suffering you inflict in the name of the father, in the name of your father’s father…in your name? Might you be deaf and blind to the songs and colors of the earth? Father in unto son in unto father in unto son…has this incest brought us all in unto Death…and Death in unto all…even unto the songs and colors of the earth? We who have endured the holocaust and exist within the purgatory of your fear no longer fear you…or your father…or your father’s father. Having breathed the sulphur of your victory century after century has turned your lungs to stone…our hearts to stone. We no longer fear you…no longer hear you. Your voice. That which has shouted your omnipotence century after century laden with threats and superstition falls like lead among the ashes…no longer hear you. You who have silenced the voices of the earth in the name of the father. In your name. Your voice lies like lead among the ashes. What an infernal history have you created! Magician!…what a fragile illusion have you enforced. Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Three brothers controlling the earth in the name of the father…in your name. You have brought us to your end. Now even you can see your face. The face of god. The erasure of all faces. The silencing of all voices in the ashes of the earth. Dare you take the final step? Are you not tempted by what your father has promised his faithful sons? Abraham’s bosom. Heaven. Paradise? Dare you take the final step? You who have rejoiced in the destruction of the plain and the persecution of its martyrs, why do you hesitate before the rapture? Would you ignore your father’s voice? Cowards! He calls you to his bosom. Does the fear of pain delay you? Hypocrites! The flames that defeat and stigmatize your enemies will raise you to paradise. Why do you hesitate? He who has given you power over the earth has promised you eternal life. Why do you hesitate? Is there not punishment for doubt? Do you not fear his wrath? Why do you not embrace his promise? He has promised you whores and houris, riches and wonders. All that you have killed for here he will give you there. Why do you hesitate? Is there not punishment for doubt? Do you lust after your daughters? You will be given daughters and like Lot you will bear no shame. Do you lust after your sister? Your sister will be given to you and like Abraham you will bear no shame. Are you not your father’s sons? In the name of the father, are not his rights your rights? As you have invented him so has he invented you. Your needs are known and will be fulfilled. Why do you hesitate? Perhaps; you know yourselves too well. Perhaps you know that Lot seduced his daughters and that god perjured his testimony. Perhaps you recognize in his word the false actions and atonement that you have writ there and continue writing in complicity. Perhaps you know yourselves too well. Perhaps you know that the shallowness of his reward reflects the shallowness of your desire. Having done commerce among yourselves, does not a reward commensurate cause suspicion? Perhaps promising you there what he admonishes here causes some doubt? Perhaps the father you have created to create you in his image would deceive you as you deceive others in his name. Perhaps he is false as you are false…as you are false in his name. Perhaps you know yourselves too well…know too well the yoke of promises and threats, the control of everlasting pain. The father in the image of the father…controlling yoke of everlasting pain. Perhaps it is the image that delays you. His image/your image. Perhaps; you would not give up his power. His power/your power. Perhaps you know that to exercise his power is to lose your power. His image/your image. Perhaps you know….Does nothing shame you? Does being a man not shame you? Does redundancy not shame you? Does cowardice not shame you? And hypocrisy? Does murder in the name of the father not shame you? We, the martyrs of the plain, shame you, for by killing us you kill your children, your fathers, Ishmael and Isaac. We are the unexpected. The babe in the whore’s womb! The twilight birth. The cuckoo’s egg. We are the unexpected. The sudden light that reveals the contour of your hypocrisy. The holocaust awaits you. You have been given the means. Your father expects you. Would you be prodigal? Come! Do unto yourselves as you have done unto others. As you have ruled the earth so will you serve in Paradise. Your world flounders. Your seed fails you. Your father’s father whom you have created to exalt your premise exhales you. Wrapped in dogma you ignore the inevitabilities of creation. That which is created creates. As beginnings create endings endings illuminate beginnings. That which lies between is compressed into layered repetition. If you do not destroy this world in the name of the father with the gift of the father then you destroy the father who is yourself. Come, we the martyrs of the plain await your suicide…await your patricide…await your end…Await the end of the father who is Isaac who is Abraham who is Ishmael, who is god our murderer. We, the martyrs of the plain await your end. You who claim the birthright of the father, we await your end. You who murder in the name of the father, we await your end. You who have murdered us in the name of the father, we, the martyrs of the plain, await your end....
"MARTYRS OF THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN examines the First Holocaust. Based on the blue triangle that descends the back panel of PROCRUSTES IN SITU, the third section of the Trilogy concerns itself with the destruction of the cities Admah, Gomorrah, Sodom, and Zeboiim which the Old Testament attributes to the wrath of God. It examines the procrustean constrictions of patriarchy and the liberating challenge of feminine entelechy through the songs of Procrustes and the opposing chants of Chance, Being, and Desire. Masculine gestalt versus feminine insurrection." Robert Cremean
Collection:
Fresno Art Museum
Fresno, California
Robert Cremean: THE PROCRUSTES TRILOGY: Martyrs Of The Cities Of The Plain
Detail from MARTYRS OF THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN, the Masculine Gestalt.
Below is a transcription of the words in the above image:
Our homeland is Diaspora. Scattered in the seed of strangers, we enter the cribs of our enemies to live uninvited lives. Our history is older than history rooted in the first stirrings of desire. We are the martyrs of the Cities of the Plain torched and murdered by our fathers' Father, we cling now to ropes of shadow wary of the son. We are the unexpected: the babe in the bulrushes, the wind in the willows, the cowbird’s egg. We are that which defines recognition…the question that serves no answer. Embraced or exiled, our name is anarchy. We are the sons and daughters of slaves. Born into servitude, we fit no uniform. Patterns of behavior cannot suit us. We hang naked on hooks of shame, shrouded in the smoke of premonition. How came we to die? What circumstances force this unrelenting purgatory? Ask Lot. Ask Abraham. Ask god himself. If he answers your prayers, does he not proclaim his victories? Holocaust! Our cities were assaulted by fire. Men, women and children raped and sodomized by fire. The unborn boiled in the womb. Infants roasted in their cribs. What monster claims this victory…this genocide? Holocaust! Our feet were pierced with flame. Great spouts and gouts of it ashed the plain with bone and hair. The tongues went in unto every entry of our flesh. We were crucified by pain. Holocaust! What hypocrite claims this victory? Abraham who fucked his sister? Lot who fucked his daughters? God gazed full upon the cities of the plain; for these he winked and nodded…. Our fathers were born from the ashes of the plain. Man created in God’s image created by men created from the guilty seeds of incest rooted in the ashes of the plain. We who are the martyrs of the plain proclaim your birth! What guilt shapes this deflection….Disciples of incest and adultery, from what lofty height do you view the plain? How come you to judge? We are all the sons and daughters of whores. Your god is your greatest sin. You have created him in your image to punish and forgive the sins that men have created. Is this not madness? A super-father who chides and protects you while diminishing his enemies even unto eternal damnation. Is this not childishness? And if you have created him in your image to create you in his is he not also a child? You have created a world for boys…a place of perpetual naivety unsuitable for innocence. A world of fear based on enforcement of privilege by a brotherhood in the name of the Father. Three brothers claiming the birthright of the Father; two born out of incest and one from adultery. Three little bully-boys who control their reality through force and threat…a triad of divine hypocrisy. Murdered by our fathers in the name of the Father, we, the martyrs of the plain, accuse you. From what seed stems your root? Your declination bears the taint of incest…might you be mad? Might you be blind? Paranoid? What defects define your heritage? Centuries of inbreeding from brother and sister to father and son and son to father…might you be mad? Might you be deaf…unable to hear the cries of the earth…blind to the suffering you inflict in the name of the father, in the name of your father’s father…in your name? Might you be deaf and blind to the songs and colors of the earth? Father in unto son in unto father in unto son…has this incest brought us all in unto Death…and Death in unto all…even unto the songs and colors of the earth? We who have endured the holocaust and exist within the purgatory of your fear no longer fear you…or your father…or your father’s father. Having breathed the sulphur of your victory century after century has turned your lungs to stone…our hearts to stone. We no longer fear you…no longer hear you. Your voice. That which has shouted your omnipotence century after century laden with threats and superstition falls like lead among the ashes…no longer hear you. You who have silenced the voices of the earth in the name of the father. In your name. Your voice lies like lead among the ashes. What an infernal history have you created! Magician!…what a fragile illusion have you enforced. Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Three brothers controlling the earth in the name of the father…in your name. You have brought us to your end. Now even you can see your face. The face of god. The erasure of all faces. The silencing of all voices in the ashes of the earth. Dare you take the final step? Are you not tempted by what your father has promised his faithful sons? Abraham’s bosom. Heaven. Paradise? Dare you take the final step? You who have rejoiced in the destruction of the plain and the persecution of its martyrs, why do you hesitate before the rapture? Would you ignore your father’s voice? Cowards! He calls you to his bosom. Does the fear of pain delay you? Hypocrites! The flames that defeat and stigmatize your enemies will raise you to paradise. Why do you hesitate? He who has given you power over the earth has promised you eternal life. Why do you hesitate? Is there not punishment for doubt? Do you not fear his wrath? Why do you not embrace his promise? He has promised you whores and houris, riches and wonders. All that you have killed for here he will give you there. Why do you hesitate? Is there not punishment for doubt? Do you lust after your daughters? You will be given daughters and like Lot you will bear no shame. Do you lust after your sister? Your sister will be given to you and like Abraham you will bear no shame. Are you not your father’s sons? In the name of the father, are not his rights your rights? As you have invented him so has he invented you. Your needs are known and will be fulfilled. Why do you hesitate? Perhaps; you know yourselves too well. Perhaps you know that Lot seduced his daughters and that god perjured his testimony. Perhaps you recognize in his word the false actions and atonement that you have writ there and continue writing in complicity. Perhaps you know yourselves too well. Perhaps you know that the shallowness of his reward reflects the shallowness of your desire. Having done commerce among yourselves, does not a reward commensurate cause suspicion? Perhaps promising you there what he admonishes here causes some doubt? Perhaps the father you have created to create you in his image would deceive you as you deceive others in his name. Perhaps he is false as you are false…as you are false in his name. Perhaps you know yourselves too well…know too well the yoke of promises and threats, the control of everlasting pain. The father in the image of the father…controlling yoke of everlasting pain. Perhaps it is the image that delays you. His image/your image. Perhaps; you would not give up his power. His power/your power. Perhaps you know that to exercise his power is to lose your power. His image/your image. Perhaps you know….Does nothing shame you? Does being a man not shame you? Does redundancy not shame you? Does cowardice not shame you? And hypocrisy? Does murder in the name of the father not shame you? We, the martyrs of the plain, shame you, for by killing us you kill your children, your fathers, Ishmael and Isaac. We are the unexpected. The babe in the whore’s womb! The twilight birth. The cuckoo’s egg. We are the unexpected. The sudden light that reveals the contour of your hypocrisy. The holocaust awaits you. You have been given the means. Your father expects you. Would you be prodigal? Come! Do unto yourselves as you have done unto others. As you have ruled the earth so will you serve in Paradise. Your world flounders. Your seed fails you. Your father’s father whom you have created to exalt your premise exhales you. Wrapped in dogma you ignore the inevitabilities of creation. That which is created creates. As beginnings create endings endings illuminate beginnings. That which lies between is compressed into layered repetition. If you do not destroy this world in the name of the father with the gift of the father then you destroy the father who is yourself. Come, we the martyrs of the plain await your suicide…await your patricide…await your end…Await the end of the father who is Isaac who is Abraham who is Ishmael, who is god our murderer. We, the martyrs of the plain await your end. You who claim the birthright of the father, we await your end. You who murder in the name of the father, we await your end. You who have murdered us in the name of the father, we, the martyrs of the plain, await your end....
"MARTYRS OF THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN examines the First Holocaust. Based on the blue triangle that descends the back panel of PROCRUSTES IN SITU, the third section of the Trilogy concerns itself with the destruction of the cities Admah, Gomorrah, Sodom, and Zeboiim which the Old Testament attributes to the wrath of God. It examines the procrustean constrictions of patriarchy and the liberating challenge of feminine entelechy through the songs of Procrustes and the opposing chants of Chance, Being, and Desire. Masculine gestalt versus feminine insurrection." Robert Cremean
Collection:
Fresno Art Museum
Fresno, California