Trajectoral traditions
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Spoon, Water, Glass
The latest in my Spoon series was prompted by a challenge from my friend Genevieve L, who manages a drawing group in Facebook. The challenge was to make a drawing of or including water in some form.
Originally, I thought to do a double acrostic, and got as far as this:
But this seemed a dead end–the triple acrostic would distract from the drawing, and it felt better to have the acrosticist STFU and let the draughtsman do the non-talking.
Tenors 3 Eggs 3 Lock 1 All-Important Spoon 1
This one is crying to be made into a painting ten feet high. Alas, it would need to be photoreal, and none of that Giclée stuff either; that’d be cheating. If fifty grand fell out of the sky into my lap I’d quit my job and spend a year on the project. That’s unlikely to happen, since when I sit outside I’m usually at a picnic table, and if the shade tree didn’t stop the 50 Gs in its tracks, the top of the table would. But it is a nice dream.
This brings up the subject of Patronage and Grants. In his landmark novel Stranger In a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein had his Wise Old Owl character Jubal Harshaw yell, “A government-supported artist is an incompetent whore!” I read Stranger more than forty years ago, when I was wet behind the ears and impressionable, but I shouldn’t have taken RAH’s word for it; after all, both Leonardo and Michelangelo enjoyed the patronage of Lorenzo “Il Magnifico” de’ Medici, and if he wasn’t The Government, who was? (Pope Julius? Well, yeah, but “in addition to” not “instead of.”)
So far the only people to buy my artworks or otherwise give me money to create have been private parties. But I did apply for a grant once, so this is no sanctimonious testimonial. And my hero Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five “on Guggenheim money (God love it).”
As for the image, and why the tenors and the eggs and the lock, and why the Spoon is All-Important, not to mention the torn envelope, which wasn’t mentioned, I’m of the opinion that the story the viewer creates of this concatenation stands a good chance of being better than the story I would tell about it.
Support the Arts, folks!
November Ends, Then and Now
Eighteen years ago today a man weighing approximately 180 pounds ran more than 6.75 miles in one hour, two minutes and fifty-two seconds. It was Day 1,251 of the longest daily running streak of his life (back and hip pain compelled him to end the streak at 1,490 days). “Wiped me out!” may be found in the commentary.
Today a man weighing approximately 225 pounds has run not a single mile in more than a year. In lieu of running, he blogs. Sometimes he misses a day and sometimes he publishes more than one post in a day.
Obviously, the two are not the same man, though they share a name and other common ground. Life changes a person.
Here is a poem about today, written four days ago:
november ends
the thirtieth steps back and the first thrusts forward
orange and yellow segue to candy red and gamma green
and november slumbers for eleven months
it needs its sleep
it always does a stevedore’s job
shaking trillions of trees of their garb
seeding the skies with six-sided crystal
gathering a nation’s families around a groaning table
as it fades
its first light sleep is restlessed
by insistent jingling
Bombs Away (tragedy in one act)
It’s been over 50 years since Bob Dylan wrote and first performed “Masters of War.” Millions of people have heard the song and many have applauded it; but judging by world events the song has had less peacemongering effect than a hill of beans. That’s because people, including me, thought it was enough to voice disapproval in eloquent terms, and didn’t take the message as a call to action beyond the pianissimo “You tell em, Bob Dylan–we’re with you–we’re gonna march on Washington; just you wait and see.”
Knowledge is power. How many Americans know the name Sarkis Soghanalian, an ACTUAL Master of War, and his tango with Spiro Agnew, disgraced former Vice President of the United States, and his later tango with the Clinton administration? Finding out is a mere Internet search away. Go ahead–I dare you.
being santa’s cat
Today my friend Joe Arechavala, sometimes known as Happy Harpo, challenged me and my fellow poets in the Facebook poetry group Poets All Call to write a poem about being Santa’s cat. All I had to do was sit back as the poem wrote itself and the picture drew itself. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa’s cat, and his name is Roscoe, and I channeled him today.
The Melody Exchange (a Modest Proposal)
Often I will tell people who do not consider themselves poets of a poetry event coming up. Sometimes the response is “Ah, thanks, but I just don’t like poetry.” The technical term for most of these folks is Liars, especially if they have an iPod full of songs. Songs are poetry. That they are set to music is incidental.
Musical lyrics usually rely on stressed and unstressed syllable patterns that fit in poetic form (for instance, look up IAMBIC or TROCHAIC or ANAPESTIC if you are unfamiliar with those terms). A sophisticated songwriter like Paul Simon is not as yoked to stress pattern as most if he doesn’t want to be. (His word-economical “Overs” starts “Why don’t we stop fooling ourselves?” and ends “But each time I try on the thought of leaving you, I STOP/Stop and think it over…”) But–and here is my Modest Proposal for you with a chunk of computer programming under your belts–a melody exchange is possible for songs whose lyrics have identical, or even near-identical, stress patterns.
Example: Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” may be sung to the tune of “Seven Spanish Angels.” Example, with a bit of a stretch: that weird song of the 60’s “Quick Joey Small” can borrow the Dave Clark Five’s “Catch Me If You Can,” thus:
Sheriff’s got a shotgun (ooh, oo-ooh)
Fill ya full of lead, son (true, oo-ooh.)
Sheriff’s got a blackjack (ooh, oo-ooh)
We about went out of our minds.
Catch us if you CA-AN, catch us if you CA-AA-AA-aan…
Another stretcher: Lennon/McCartney’s “You Won’t See Me” sung to the tune of the Everly Brothers “Love Hurts:”
I call
You up
You’re line’s
Engaged;
I’ve had
Enough
So act
Your age…
But the weirdest I’ve ever realized is Simon Zealotes’ song from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. The punchline will reveal the melody exchange:
Christ what more do you need to conVINCE you
That you’ve MADE IT and you’re EASILY as strong
As the FILTH from ROME who rape our COUNtry
And who’ve TERRorized our PEOple for so long?
The BRAdy Bunch
The BRAdy Bunch
That’s the day we all became the Brady Bunch!
Thanks Giving, on its eve
Today I watched video of old times. Tomorrow I’ll enjoy a movie, eat a meal, love my friends.
oaf or the rainbone
this road is quail run
its nearness and parallelitude to mighty mingus mountain is here evinced
the ridge of mingus has been powder-sugared by flurried snow
and is hugged by the fleece of post-precipitative cloud
the cloud once turgid is now a mere bone of its erstwhile self
and i an oaf with a megapixel-challenged phone camera do not do it justice
but it the rainbone insouciantly hugs and floats on
and given a choice i’d take a moment to be it
rather than a practicing oaf
Jared Duran on the Flying Trapeze
Here is the latest page that will end up somewhere in the multi-volume LIVES of the Eminent Poets of Greater Phoenix, Arizona. It is of a talented and assured young man whose poetry skewers contemporary pretension. He also does a killer Christopher Walken imitation.
Here are the words to the double acrostic:
Jejune young ladies get him in the mood
And he reveals what makes them tickle you
Recounting, as becomes a raconteur
Encounters with the Selfie-ish. Bravura
Delivers him to starpow’r now & soon
