I placed my hands inside the listless body atop the funeral pyre. The heart was within my grasp. I placed two hands under it and lifted the burning heart to my lips. My hands seemed charred to the bone. I inhaled the powers of another. I preserved the heart into a box. I awakened in the night: My dream, poet Leigh Hunts’ reality.
My dreams have had me wearing many guises. I always thought I was a photographer running with Kerouac and the Kesey boys on the bus. I always thought I was the adventurer Sir Richard Burton, steps away from Mecca. I always thought I was Henry Miller in Clichy. Youthful imaginations seem to give a life, promise.
When I look in the mirror I see an Irish Wolfhound/sighthound in heat. I imagine standing on the roof tops of cars, trains and planes howling. I howl to nobody in particular; But for joy. A great moment of being alive is when the secrets of hearts and minds are on the roads ahead.
“The road is where life begins”. The howling sighthound is only a guise for someone of a certain age who imagines secrets are there to be discovered.
I have known since my earliest photographs that the destination was a forgone conclusion: what transpires would amount to great cultural stimuli. But the road was the place where the wildest of imaginations materialized. For seconds and minutes, real events, real discoveries were painted like frescos dancing in the skies.
One day I read a particular book. I can remember the premise and some particulars. I cannot remember the title or where the book hides.
There was a death that occurred between Casa Magni and Villa Dupuy: The homes of The Romantic Period poets, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron respectively.
I was in Italy for work and vacation. I visited with friends in Lago Maggiore, Italy. For a French magazine I photographed and interviewed artist Fernando Botero in Pietrasanta, Italy.
This journey was also of personal interest. The English Romantic’s in Italy always seemed so alluring: a life of leisure and grapes from the earth. Aside, I had a more pressing motive. I could assume the roll of Monsieur Maigret. I needed to solve a murder.
For days I raced alongside the Ligurian Coast from Pietrasanta to Livorno. I would pass by Lucca and Pisa, and make the u-turn back to Pietrasanta. It became like a game of “Jacks” or “Pick-up Sticks”. My camera grabbed every whitecap to the west and every building to the east. Every movement had a clue to how Percy Shelley died at sea.
I reimagined the history; The moment I heard the screams from the bell-tower. All of Italy went silent. The whole country wore Caravaggio eyes. I could hear Frankenstein’s creator Mary Shelley’s dark premonitions: Murder was in the air.
My camera has its own intuitive reflex. My camera’s film absorbed what I needed to see. My Nikon and Pentax saw prostitutes, damsels and sailboats everywhere. Ghosts hid in the shadows of the coastal architecture, sculptures and landscapes. There was an Italian whisper in every corner.
I slid out of my car as a Formula One race driver might at a pit stop. I listened to what my own voice whispered so slightly; “Just do what you are doing”. I remember what Ted Kennedy said to me. I remember what Joan Didion said to me. I remember what Gore Vidal said to me. I remember what a thousand subjects said to me: “Just do what you are doing”.
In the coming weeks I will continue with the untimely murder of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
