Archive

Monthly Archives: June 2019

20190612_053321

It is not a new idea that we are all prisoners in our own skulls, nor that walls by their nature keep some would-be invaders out and also keep the wall-builders in. Ecclesiastes says both “There is nothing new under the sun” and “all IS Vanity.” The newness is in observation of current conditions that uniquely apply. And in gimmickry, which is rife on this page, and in this acrostic poem.

Other Cages, Other Walls

O to S T O P that overflow

Topple stem and overthrow

Help a migrant to rejecta

Earn a nation’s cowed respect–a

Rig a mortis reach upHEAVE-all

CommanDante cache bequeathe

Aliens a fear-thee-well

Gain that Seventh Parallel

Eat our Wheaties wear our Nikes

See us altering our Psyches

20190611_094017.jpg

Four friends, four poets, four engaging souls,  four celebrations. Three are also event hosts and one is also participating in the Index Card A Day challenge, just as I am.

I acquired the photo I used for this drawing from a bittersweet event conducted by Four Chambers Press, which was closing its metaphorical doors. Called “From Our Heart To Yours,” the event was one last get-together that included a giveaway of everything Four Chambers had produced yet not sold. I took one of their anthologies, one of their poet’s chapbooks, a photo of Jake Friedman at a microphone–and the photo I based this drawing on. Among the liberties I took with the pic was moving the four poets around to achieve a more Mount-Rushmore-like arrangement.

4 Poets

Formed the phrases grab and pop

Forgotten time rebirthed just so

Foregone conclusion laid to waste

Formalities seem silliest

Foretaste of life’s peculiar truths

20190610_082347

Today sees one of those feeling-uninspired sessions of trying to light a fire with wet matches. So–draw a skinny upper leg. Attach an asthenic young woman with an icebag on her knee, held down by her crossed wrists, holding a smartphone and possibly taking the viewer’s picture. Go on from there. Finish the page but, feeling undone, start another. Draw an eye, then its mate. Attach a dissipated-looking not-quite-young face to it. Draw and compose by the seat of your pants. Finish the page, unsatisfied.

View them both at once. Not as bad. One thing’s for sure, neither works by itself. Some of the poetry is OK.

Friends, welcome to The Creative Process on a day when the artist/poet feels anything but creative. Artists CANNOT WAIT for Inspiration. The creation-rheostat has a full range, from 100%, which is Effortless and Seems Like It’s Creating Itself, to 0%, which is Death Valley and Tooth Extraction and You Don’t Know What The Hell You’re Doing all rolled into one. But every bit of directed effort is part of the continuum, part of the tapestry. So we grind on when we must, and savor when it soars.

full stop

failed the tests
under arrest
let that cop go
lollipop

fake muse

falsecolor galaxy fruit of the loom
antioch prep deuteronomy u
kale & verbatimy transcript–no mas
endochrinology–lift demitasse

Grace Under Water

Grant us thunder & a law
Rip nonSense & blablabla
Access wonder & delight
Catch some breezes w/yr kite
Etch & render ❤ u tender

20190609_075028

Isn’t it frustrating to get part of a message, and have the rest of the message be forever beyond your reach? But that is, truly, Life, for all but the omniscient. Our simian heritage gives us a busybody’s curiosity; biological and physical constraints give us opaque horizons, signal noise, the need for sleep and other homeostatic housekeeping, and the tragicomedy of a finite lifespan.

This page is at least as frustrating for me as it is for you, O Viewer. So much is beyond my talent-reach, and I seem always to be short on time. But if it helps, I only wrote the last line of “Mixing Signal,” which is “Got Me? O well,” and other than telling you that it is a persona poem with a Yahwehesque God as the persona, you are free to either write the rest yourself, synopsis it without regard to meter or rhyme, or treat it as merely a visual element.

Similar goes for “Bul[]  Shi[]” though much more of the poem is visible. It is told from the point of view of a naysayer, and is an answer to “love echo” in the form of a sort of antiecho.

Bul[] Shi[]

Bombastitude has made a mess
Upyoursism oppresses flesh
Lamed intellect reverbs ennui
[.][…..] [……..] formed [..] Model [.]

Mystery fans, you now have all the clues you need to make some sense out of the last line. I don’t think anyone on Earth would be able to discern what the last line is, exactly, but the facts that Model is capitalized, and the rhyme-meter scheme revealed by the first two lines dictate that the last line be at minimum a near-rhyme of “ennui,” get you more than halfway there.

love echo

let those with baffled vision see
oppression plain as ABC
victorious are those who ooh
enlightenment’s a Bill & Coo

20190608_051508

I had from 4:42 to 5:15 this morning to do this page, plus the knowledge that the words Every, Seven and Years are all five letters long. If more time–say three hours or so–becomes available today, I might do a more polished version.

Every Seven Years

Eat the sweet stuff happily
Victories come out to here
Enter venture out to sea
Riffed events become so clear
Y E A R N with widely scattered tears

20190607_050414

Every day is an opportunity to wallow in the depressive miasma of guaranteed mortality. Some people seek such opportunities, some flee from them in such denial as “50 is the new 30,” and some get an unignorable knocking at the door.

DOOM METE MOOD

Doubt is such a Microcosm
Onus an Embarcadero
Otherwise a Tarantino
Might send messages Encrypted

mood meet doom

metabolism maladjusted
obsolescence wrecks a bed. o
one2three the dire days come. o
detriment is zero-sum

On the other hand, says the Mortality Denier, EVERY DAY is also an opportunity to experience the Joy of a Lifetime. Please, Friends, use kindness to seek such joy.

20190606_054913

INF might be short for Infinite or Influence. LUX is Light.

So here’s to the late, great Philip José Farmer, he of the wild imagination and penchant for punning (e.g. calling a device that stimulated the fornix area of the brain a “fornixator”). INF is for his Influence on me; LUX is for his odd and tasty book NIGHT OF LIGHT.

Mash them up, Friends, and you get Influx. You and I are now inextricably bound, because the influx of this blog post has ever-so-slightly altered your brain’s electrochemistry. And you are free to add your Influx via comments.

May we always be gentle with each other.

20190605_214000

Here’s some whimsical fun. Grinning unicorn and guy with eyepatch. Nuff said?

The whimsical words to the acrostic:

O don’t fuss don’t bother if it’s bee ay ess eye cee

Rigmarole and rigidness can soon uncalm a sea

Dice are tossed with some decisions darers then go far

Explanations pale before the red meat flipped and charred

Roasted flesh attenuates extenuated swards

20190604_065615

Corita Kent demonstrated long ago that text is a useful visual element, and there’s nothing illegitimate about using it in a composition. I have gone her one worse, here, though: my text is hard to read. The viewer will soon surmise that all the text does is label/describe what is near–but “LUNA” is so hard to read that, absent me telling you that that is what it says, you probably wouldn’t know.