Denise’s granddaughter reveals a startling skill.
A Remarkable Bit of Shapeshifting
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I Am a Ghost Riding the Nose of Life
Here I fulfill a commitment to Denise’s granddaughter. Here is how I acquired the commitment: On canvas was a painting that said, clearly to anyone wearing glasses, “A Ghost Riding the Wave of Life.” Not wearing glasses, I misread it as “A Ghost Riding the Nose of Life.” She thought it was funny; I thought I should make up for my goof, so I told her I’d write a poem entitled “I Am a Ghost Riding the Nose of Life.”
Here is the poem transcribed:
Life is a weird man with
a white beard and
a surprised look
And I am the ghost
of a girl
on a skateboard
Riding on Life’s
N O S E
Beyond his nose is the great
B E Y O N D
Staying on his nose
is tricky
But I am up to it
And I am up
to unghosting
myself
and coming back to my
mom and my bubba and my
uncle sean and my ninny–
REAL Life!
Happy Birthday, Shawn L. Bird
Three unique souls share a birthday today. One is my late grandfather, Paul L. Householder. One is my Sweetheart, Denise. The third is my partner in pun-ditry (see “The Pun Exchange” some posts back), Shawn L. Bird. Here is a page I did today that both celebrates Shawn’s birthday and fulfills a commitment to Try, Try Again to do Shawn justice with a portrait.
This effort is better than the first one. The next one will be better yet, if and when. Meanwhile, you’ll find Shawn in the WordPress blogosphere, and her book Grace Awakening, referred to in the acrostic, available here and there. Seek and ye shall find–and please with me wish Shawn a very Happy Birthday!
glory? hallelujah? lazarus come fourth
Friends, today is the 238th anniversary of the presentation of my country’s Declaration of Independence to the world. I feel compelled to write something for the occasion, so here goes.
glory? hallelujah? lazarus come fourth
columbus took slaves
& killed innocents
andrew jackson presided over the genocidal “trail of tears”
flogging the aptly named “indian removal act”
nixon carpetbombed cambodia
he’d barely been inaugurated
reagan mined nicaraguan waters
and even barry goldwater acknowledged that that was a war crime
hillary clinton has a good shot at the presidency
but she lost me when she championed the patriot act
america america man sheds his waste on thee
said george carlin to applauders who were horrendous wasters themselves
america the practice flies in the face of america the theory
in so many heartbreaking ways
but america has the songs of katharine bates and pete seeger and jackson browne
and bob dylan and janis ian and brian wilson and carole king and carly simon and paul simon
america has the poetry of langston hughes and maya angelou
and the musings of ralph ellison and james baldwin–descendants of slaves all
and walt whitman heard america singing long before them
and listen and you will hear her singing still
nonvengeful amish
freewheeling brilliant feynman pohl asimov greg bear poul anderson
thirty-one years ago i declared independence from a sedentary lifestyle
ran a mile in under nine minutes and would continue to do so daily for 420 days
that first mile of the streak began on 19th & indian school
& ended a mile north
& as i turned south to walk home & faced the phoenix downtown
as if on cue the fireworks started telling me i was on a true path
and i a molecule of america received a mandate to renew restore and become
that fourth of july 1983 was more than half my life ago
terrible things have happened since inside my life and out
sweet amazing things have happened as well
i cannot but think that america is wounded perhaps direly
but she still has a spark and a heart
and regenerable tissue
and a mind for the better
Geek-A-Rama
The Urban Dictionary’s #1 definition of Geek is “The people you pick on in high school and wind up working for as an adult.” The kids I drew on this page are still being picked on, but they know they rock.
Here are the words to the triple acrostic:
Good LORD–feel that enthusiasm–each a superstar
Enjoy our radiation: safe enough for Gramp & Gamma
EnDANGERment is mocked–we use a Death’s-head-grin alarm
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar holds court within our diorama
Note also the hidden message via blacked-up letters: “THUS–ugh–Death holds our wit.”
Speaking of the awesome, starring-in-AIRPLANE! Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who just wrote a guest column about racism in a major publication, long ago I made up this riddle about him:
Q: What should you sing if Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has his thumb in your coffee cup as he’s handing it to you?
A: “You’re the Kareem in my Coffee…”
Yes, I’m a Joke Geek. And vice versa.
Picasso was a Jerk
Recently TIME Magazine profiled a retrospective of Jeff Koons. Mr. Koons is a good four months younger than I am, yet he’s seen work of his sold for a cool 58.4 million dollars. Once I sold a piece of mine for $250.00, but then the gallery took its 20%. Sigh.
It reminded me of this page, of a pioneer of not only Art but of an artist’s self-promotion:
Here are the words to the acrostic sonnet, with apologies for the clumsiness of Line 5:
What Picasso Had
Well, Pablo had a round head–that’s for starters;
His Bald and Bulbous Noggin was a Moon;
A gorgeous Harem–Demoiselles & Martyrs;
The cheek to make a napkin-drawn cartoon
Pay for three demoiselles’ Euro-Vacation;
Intensity of Focus . . . FEAR of Death . . .
Chicago’s streets to sculpt a Big Sensation;
A knack for Marketing with Every Breath.
Some envy his long life, his wealth, his Women,
Success like that some Art aspirants strive for;
Oh, nothing’s wrong with Fame to smile & swim in,
However, it’s unseemly to connive for.
Ahhh–I’ll not judge him. ART’ll; FATE’ll; GOD’ll;
Don’t know–but I won’t use him as a Model.
(Of behavior, that is. He was a real and true Jerk. See SURVIVING PICASSO for a taste of his Jerkiness, not to mention a stellar performance by Sir Anthony Hopkins. Quoth Wikipedia: “Picasso is shown as often not caring about other people’s feelings, firing his driver after a long period of service, and as a womanizer, saying that he can sleep with whomever he wants.”)
boys of summer (for socorro olsen)
A dear and as yet unmet in person friend of mine, Socorro Olsen, created and conducts a poetry group in Facebook. Every Tuesday I contribute a thread called “Title Tuesday.” I offer five titles for fellow poets to hang their poems on. I also invite more titles. Today, this Tuesday, Socorro offered “Boys of Summer.” She thus catalyzed my poem below.
boys of summer
some boys of summer are gloved and batted and capped
on fields of dirt and grass
chasing a hidecovered stitchedup ball
and their gloves and the dirt and the wood of the bats
mix spoors with the sweet smell of cutgrass
and the smell is pure baseball
some boys of summer are after girls
and yet not being dorkily shy
and they sidle and longingly eye
the pretty gigglers
the breathtakingly mousy librarianesques
the stately tall ones the smiley plump ones
and the boys wish for fate to intervene
and get them the hand of a girl to hold
and yet no need on their part
to put their boy-egos on the line
to profess like much less love
the boys dream
though they walk awake
some boys of summer build en garage
some boys of summer hike and camp
some read and read and read
and some alas throw bricks through windows
but
when summer winks out with the equinox
it leaves a little firefly in some of the boys
and some of the girls
and some of the grownups
Stricken, Then & Now
Today I finished a remake of something I’d first done more than five years ago. I used stroke victim John Updike to create a sort of public-service announcement, giving the warning signs of stroke and also some preventive measures. I am no stranger to the Soapbox, you see.
Here is what I did in the wee hours this morning:
And here is the original, finished in late January 2009:
You’d think the latest would reflect five solid years of practice between late January 2009 and early July 2014, but the new one is not all that much better than the old. Reason is I didn’t take the time I should have.
Here are the words:
Stroke: a random Maniac
Twinge devolving to Attack
Rawly, aftermaths illumine
It’s a CRAPSHOOT being Human.
Involvements
Here is another finally-finished page.
The words to the single-word double acrostic are these:
Index cards & social meme
Novice hack or reader’s dream
Voices shrill can drill to bone
Orders strict tell despot’s notion
Lavish love creates its quotient
Vortex waves have force of oceans
The meaning to this one is less elusive if you think of the words with the image as not describing a universal truth, but one person’s relationship/maturation journey, and that person someone you’re just getting to know.
In Memoriam: Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894
Lest anyone think I defaced this book with my sketch: the sketch was done on a COPY of the open pages. Some fine day I'll write a commemorative sonnet, rhyming "heights" with "Pre-Raphaelites." Hers was a pioneering, breathtaking sensibility, and I'd love to do her justice in her style. I'm not yet capable, though.
