Canvas
Flesh has withered
And yet its wearer now wants a tattoo.
What subject could possibly be a match
For such a crepey substrate?
“High-Waisted Giantess in Long Scarlet Skirt”
Will soon sleeve his left arm from wrist to shoulder.
when you are between
a rock and a hard place, love,
you climb, Darling, CLIMB.
Start with a ball of soft clay about 3 inches in diameter. Roll it into a coil the width of your wedging board. Twist the middle so you have two equal-size pieces. Put one aside and roll a coil on the other so it is the width of the board. Twist in half; put one half aside; roll the other the width as before.
Go to your potter’s wheel where you just wired a vase off the batt. Spin the wheel slowly and use a wood knife to create your Rock Star’s plumage by gradually scraping the disc of wired-off clay toward the center of the wheel head. The clay will fold and texture and when you reach the middle it will separate from the batt.
Use the largest coil to sculpt torso, guitar, and head. The next size coil makes the legs and the last makes the arms and the rock star’s halo. Do not take more than 25 minutes.
Your effort may look crude but 90% it will be rock-starrish. The more times you do it, the larger and more refined your rock band will be.
Here are five pounds of clay massaged into form. This time the task I settled on was simple: do a globular, well-made form with ribbing refinement.
When it becomes leather hard I may take a pebble or a spoon and burnish the surface, perhaps in a pattern, perhaps overall. I may do some carving as well. I miss my carving days.
This session has been calming and soul-filling. It has been a superb use of my Day Off 1 of 2. There are many other tempting things to do, some quite unhealthy, and when I do this I don’t do those.
we commit crimes
against animals.
we forgive ourselves.
yum yum.
Instructions to the Reader
1: Prepare Your Mind
Reader, this set of stanzas will do you the most good
If you begin just having had something good
Happen. Kiss and caress a loved one, furry or smooth,
Or have a beloved snack, or remember
And tell yourself
Your favorite
Joke.
..
2: Affirm Your Worth
Read the next, italicized line out loud.
Today I am a powerful force for Good.
And, reader, you are powerful enough
To
Make
That
True!
..
3: Get Your Blood Moving
Your circulatory system saves your life daily.
It delivers oxygen; it feeds the kidneys and liver
So they can do their cleanups; it gives your brain
The lubricant of thought.
In the zone of 60 to 85 percent of your max HR
It does what it does best, and makes you better.
Make your vessels zing!
..
4: Ignite
There is something you know that I don’t,
And that is the Something in your life
That needs to be fixed or initiated or removed.
There is a baby step you can take
That may well act as spark to kindling
And flame up your involvement to make it happen.
TAKE that baby step, my friend!!
..
5: Talk To Me
I am here because I want to be a better poet.
You can help me with your criticism of my poetry
Delivered via comment
And I am eager to hear from you. I may not
Take your advice, but I will learn from it,
And, when I look at your own postings,
I will learn more about who you are.
Hayy Youu
Henrietta had a haystack on which she sat haughty
Alexeev Awestruck aimed a notion nice&naughty–o
Yarrowstalks revealed nothing telling minds nor menu
Yet yesterlings said Yes to yield an alphabetic Gen U
Parsing Ars Poetica
To Rosemarie Dombrowski
Horace
Rhymes with chorus
A crowd
Thinking or singing out loud.
There are ridiculous and sublime
Ways to rhyme,
To codify oceans
Of notions,
Tracts
Of a mix of fancy and facts.
A poem need not rhyme
With every pair of lines
Or even ever
But in order to be a poem it needs to roam
Realms of thought
Skylines of rippling emotions
To yield a encrypted description
Or a wearable narrative
Or a profound or slight insight
That brightens
Or darkens
What has come before.
You want to know more?
Grow some of your own;
That will teach you.
..
Afterword: Rosemarie, first Poetry Laureate of Phoenix, once had a spoken-word event at the now-defunct Urban Beans in which she discussed the Art of Poetry.
Winesap
The medicinal nature of the winesap opens
Its little black bag for you when you
The nutrition-vampire bite it
And your jingle-bell cells thrill
To a pactin-peppered fusillade
With a “Thank you!!” that has
No thought but a smile
..
Without a dictionary (though we have many)
We can guess that whoever bred the first
Winesap, getting that nutrition-
And taste-thrill, may have likened the sensation
To a hearty slug of red wine
And the juiciness, perhaps escaping
A mouth’s confines, was simultaneously likened
To an abundance of sap escaping a tree trunk;
And apple names are marketing tools anyhow
(One of the least delicious varieties
Is called Delicious!!)
And Winesap is a fine elemental choice
For this eminently crisp, sweet
Juice-abundant
Organic
Confection.
Wow, wouldn’t it be medicinal and good
To have one
Just this minute?
The quality of Quiet
Increases some places, some nights
And a nearly invisible woman found
That it could be harvested
Without being lessened. Like a seed crystal
Some of the Quiet she took in this night
As she wove her paths through the downtown
Imposed its calm pattern on her psyche
Without her taking it away.
And when, later, the punks itching for action
Saw through her invisibity and descended on her
With their Hey Baby and their Whey Ya Goin Cutie?
She took the blanket of Quiet she had grown
In her perseverant soul
And dropped it over them
And they gently crumpled to the sidewalk
And fell to sleep,
Slight smiles on their faces.
She took a knife from one, guns from two others,
And walked them to the river and dropped them in
After drawing a shallow red line across the throat
Of the knife’s former owner
To give him and his associates
Something to think about.
Then she left to find more quiet
And perhaps more disarmament.
One with Clay, Image and Text 