This was done by way of thanks to a friend who’d sent me a card featuring Levon in his bearded Salad Days. I have posted it on Facebook, and on the post I mentioned I might base a journal page on Levon some day. If I do, the double acrostic will be LEVON HELM’D.
Here’s a webcam “selfie” of me and the card:
This post’s title was to have been “Post #222,” for this is my 222nd post, and I have a thing for certain numbers. When I’m on a treadmill I call eleven minutes and eleven seconds “getting my ones;” 22:22 is “getting my twos;” and so on. I used to get my fives. Then I got old and deconditioned.
But the title is “Unchain’d Mallardy” for two reasons. Reason one: I consider this one of my worst puns of all time, and I take perverse pride in that. Reason two: the song “Unchained Melody,” which I love to hear and wish I could sing, came to be in about as random a way as this page did.
This morning the first thing I did to my blank page was to rub a pencil’s edge over it while it lay atop the drawing table I’ve owned and used for more than 40 years. Here is what I got:
The scratches, gouges and dings from often-ill-advised use of my table gave an unevenness to the graphite rubbing, as I hoped it would. Straining to see something real in the randomness, I suddenly perceived a duck on the surface of a body of water.
Here is a progression of my drawing’s stages from that point on:
The gorgeous and talented Salma H didn’t enter the equation till I’d written the poem. I had left room for her beforehand, though–I knew another element would demand existence.
Here are the words:
Umberto Eco’s lists give calm
Not too unlike the torsoed Salma
Cacophony does discord tell
Harmonious-webb’d feet compel
And to the brain by way of sclera
In waterfowl we’ve funhouse mirror
Nor do we need go R F D
‘D seem Ducks do Delivery
As in…From Evil? [Author smiles]
a door is cleansed and Blake goes oooh
let years go by–some looky-lieu
develops his own loup-garoux
o Brave New World assez gentil
unless you [heart] a huckabee
soliloquizing fearlessly
Destiny just HALF-awaits
Eternity oft slows a gait
Recipes for amped career
Asperity unspoken here
Inner peace remembers this
Lucidity precursors bliss
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
–“Flower in the Crannied Wall” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
There once was a Dormouse who lived in a bed
Of delphiniums (blue) and geraniums (red),
And all the day long he’d a wonderful view
Of geraniums (red) and delphiniums (blue).
–from “The Dormouse and the Doctor” by A. A. Milne
Delphinium scaposum
Let none on Earth oppose ’em:
These Wildhearts of flowers
Choose Rock and Knoll for bowers.
–something I just made up
Let us start with the words. They are hard to read in either image.
Vortex Forces
Vectors intersect sometimes–a CRASH & then comes STUFF
Of COSMICALITY such as to make a Billy gruff
Recursive functions tend implosive curled intaglio
Turbidity is crushed & squeezed upon the ocean floor
TEMPESTUOUS relationships both long-term and ad hoc
Ensnare & hobble Hobbesians & shackle fans of Locke
X marks the whirlwindy LOCUS where Saints & Sinners need to focus
Here is Image 1:
And here is image 2:
One set of words; two “serving suggestions.” Is one better than the other? Why or why not?
On this page are four acrostic poems and a scattering of images. In all the images are indications of Gamesmanship, a few involving chess pieces. One image has a horse as background, a kissing couple framed by the horse, and three fuzzily-defined chess pieces in front of the couple. There’s also a tennis player waiting for a serve; a balding man flanked by Queens; a soaring hawk and a gliding parasail; two marathoners, one a runner and one a wheelchair athlete; and a hand grasping a long pencil–the last a bit of Draughtsman Versus Blankpage gamesmanship.
The acrostics go from the semisilly to the earnestly serious (Business). Here are their words:
Uh Oh
UNDERSEA say not Land Ho
HOVERCRAFT push Aitch 2 Oh
Dire Need
DESTINY may frown or grin
If the effort’s genuine
Rocks along the road impede
Extra moxie takes the lead
Unfinished
Undone undefined mistake
Now coiled entwines like a snake
Finessing a news spot whilst miked
Is bound to get Harry well liked
Business
Buy & sell & keep it clean
Urge an Ethos crystalline
Soles are worn with hardwalked shoes
It will help to pay your Dues
Windows shatter; Oxfords scuff
Ill winds blow & candles snuff–O
SYNC is spelled S – Y – N – C
EFF O L. De’ MEDICI
Foci are more than one Focus. Can they be wise? I was intrigued by the notion that they could, and then all of this spilled out.
Lorenzo De’ Medici, called Il Magnifico, was a wealthy art patron who sponsored both Leonardo and Michelangelo. I think he did more good than harm. I Eff him chiefly to achieve the near-synchronicity of S – Y – N – C and F – O – L – D. No one in the Universe has ever achieved this, exactly. If I hadn’t done over a thousand acrostics in preparation, I wouldn’t have been able to do it either.
Some journal pages are best served with wordlessness.
My Girlfriend’s miles and miles away, and will be for at least a day, and that is why my woe I trace–Self-Portrait With A Grumpy Face.
Circuitry
Concatenated circumstance au fait
Is rarely/never surfeit–Chas. Boyer
Refinedly informed his mate: No Way
Historical note: Richard Feynman was not only a fine bongo-drums and frigideira player, and a first-rate Nobel-Prize-winning physicist, but he was also a creditable artist. He signed his artwork “Ofey,” a phoneticization of “au fait,” which is French for “It is done.”
