Day 17--The Second of Several Manifestos in the Voices of the Dead

Braque on Progress and Mimesis

You are making a fact, pictorial fact
 and no one cares how many times 
  the violin in fact has been played.

Do not imitate the thing. Make the thing.
 From this, Christ made loaves 
  and enough fishes for thousands.

You must be more primitive, brother, 
 paint with only one brush 
  and smaller palette you crush 
   from the foods you have failed to eat. 

Oh, I am falling in love with fish, and with birds.
 See the black fish, the birds I have made,
  the new surface I have improvised for the world.