The Purposeful Mayonnaise

(Existential loneliness)


Heavy tissues, night calls
Sky breaks, ceiling falls
Charcoal coloured walls
Marbles roll, slippery balls

Known settings and all
The creature stands tall
A silhouette in a familiar hall
Sandman’s awake and joins the fall

Eyes close and the mind goes
As it dances on its toes
Stomping and beating the heart it knows
Like the pressure of a gushing hose

The tugging of opposite sides
The moon shines through the tides
We are in May, between the ides
The ying and yang abides

Your body, a vessel navigating
This coast of lone wolves raving
A party one prefers denying
But remains inside dancing

The leftover stains of a broken deal
Insomnia for others, a strange reel
A dinner for one, an isolated meal
Existential loneliness I feel.

Rafaël Barnwell 

Rafaël Barnwell is an emerging poet, writer and artist. She is a French Canadian from Montreal and writes in both English and French. World traveler and people lover, she strongly believes that sharing stories is an essential part in inspiring others and ourselves. Today, Rafaël lives and writes in Berlin.
Website: https://www.rafaelhbarnwell.com/ Instagram: @rafhart  

Artist Statement

My work is nostalgic for something lost or fantastical. I revere the tradition of object making and wallow in my passion for rebellious confrontation. I enjoy creating objects that satisfy both the haunting surrealistic inspiration of my boyhood spent watching cartoons and reading comic books and the optimistically nihilistic mindfulness of my present state of being as an artist and educator. Toys and characters that are meant to comfort, entertain and perform become symbols to embody violence and to confront pain and rejection. My work pushes back at the boundaries and pressures that I endure as a participant in and as an observer of American Culture.  

Artwork Statement

Clowns/jesters have always fascinated me. I was raised with positive representations of clowns in my childhood, from my clown covered baby blanket, to my stuffed clown figure, my memories of Ringling Brothers Circus clowns, the occasional birthday clown, to the wonderful depictions of clowns by Norman Rockwell. But in more recent memory clowns have taken on less of a positive cultural presence and have become symbols of fear and horror in such representations as Pennywise from Stephen King's It or The Joker, from the Batman franchise.. The tension of the double association of the "clown" between my positive memories and popular culture's horrific depictions, has made the clown a perfect subject to depict my expressions of anxious social performance and rejections.  

Website: williamfillmoresculpture.com Instagram: @williamlfillmore