Here is a little more oil pastel practice and a little more meta-wordplay. The five words I chose to acrosticize “WORDS” are each extraordinary, especially upon reflection. As for the image, the fewer words said of it the better.
Among my poet friends are two that I found quote worthy today. Shawnte Orion says, “These poems aren’t just going to reject themselves.” With that profound adage as his watchwords, he’s gotten his poems rejected numberless times–but also, increasingly, ACCEPTED by increasingly prestigious journals.
As for Victoria Hoyt, with whom it’s been my pleasure to talk for hours about poetry etcetera, a shift of word-emphasis in the five words “Poetry is like a code” yields two quite different thoughts.
eradication and reconstitution and awe
reverence and blasphemer’s sand dollar
rotomontade and melodies of grandeur on grand piano
outstanding stamina/splinter
revivals and the age of alexander
“Temper, temper,” we say of someone who flies off the handle/gets Pee Oh’d/indulges in rage. But “temper temper” may be advice, when the first Temper means “serve as a neutralizing or counterbalancing force . . .”
temper temper
ten-second counting is the best
emotion checked with time & geste
marshmallow mellow pick & strum
permits this chum not be a chump
emergent calm need not be rare
reject the raging growling bear
. . . or lion. Lamb it up today, Friends!
I’m at a sports bar in Tempe, Arizona on a Saturday night, watching THE BIG LEBOWSKI on one of at least 15 screens simulcast in its splendor. A co-worker, to whom I am grateful, tipped me off about this fine event.
Must get back to the movie. CHEERS!
The Third of June rolls by again. That makes 48 Thirds of Junes since the song “Ode to Billie Joe” came out in 1967. And Bobbie Gentry, born Roberta Lee Streeter, is said to be living in seclusion in Los Angeles. If alive, she is 71 years old.
She once owned a piece of the Phoenix Suns, but hasn’t since 1987. She never told us what the girl and Billie Joe threw off the bridge, but said the real meaning of the song was about nonchalance and indifference, a family talking casually about a seeming suicide while not realizing the fellow’s girlfriend was right there at the table. (That does seem downright Faulkneresque, if not Kafkaesque, to me.)
Anyway–I was a fan. I watched “The Bobbie Gentry Happiness Hour” as few others did. I think “Ode to Billie Joe” is a classic. And I imagine many will remember her, this Third of June . . .
In Love of a Brother (part 1) I promised transcription and annotation. Here goes:
Love of a Brother x 3
Lo & beholden, the Sun may absorb
One of your handicaps 2 trot
Vivaciously–and breathe
ENERGY into Another
Brian spent a lot of time in the Phoenix sun with his cardboard sign. Once I was driving and I saw him on an island. We had ten seconds or so of good conversation, then the traffic demanded I go. I gave him a ten-spot to help him through his day.
Look at a once-called Ozob
Once a scruffy panhandler
Verily & forsooth
Endgames are a bother
Brian acquired the nickname Ozob during school. It is Bozo backwards.
Last fortune cookie said Life Is A Verb
Out of the mouths of cookies oft comes Favor
Viceissitudes lay low my bro
Eternal as delayed Godot
Obstruction’s a real bitch
Forceps & clamps to the fore
And verbalize LIFE for my brother
I was solo at China Chili, where Brian and Mom and I have been known to go, it being near Mom’s house, a few days ago. My fortune cookie said “Life is a verb.” It really did. Shortest fortune I ever got, and one of the most cryptic. I apply all its force to Brian’s upcoming surgery . . .
Finally, today I tried to settle down and sum up Brian in as few words as possible. Foremost to mind was the fact that he is a widower, and his deceased wife Lira, a true sweetheart, was the love of Brian’s life.
Lira’s man–Ozob
Outlaw–storyteller
Vagabond too
Empathetic host
Often in Dutch [trouble]
Fighter with a cause
A true Survivor
Today I went to help my brother Brian with yardwork and carport/shed hauling. I yelled at him when he pitched in to the point of reaching as high as he could to clip some branches on the small tree. I lectured him about trying to be a player/coach when at this time he needed to be just a coach. “When you coach a softball team, you can’t go out in the field with the guys,” I said. (Brian had been a Little League coach–a good one–some years back.)
Later I apologized for yelling at him. He said it was OK and I was right and he needed to keep in check.
The thing is, Brian is going to the hospital for cancer surgery next Tuesday. He has an IV port in his chest that has been there since his chemotherapy a couple of months ago. Most of the available veins–aren’t.
Brian has been to Hell on his own dime via street life, incarceration, and hard drug use. This century he has trekked back out of Hell heroically, and gives a lot of credit to the faith-based service organizations Streets of Joy and Victory Outreach. He has even (miraculously!) stopped smoking, giving up a habit he’d had since his teens.
But now, the malignant mass having had its growth stunned and stunted as much as possible via chemo and radiation, the docs are going in to remove the mass, and part of Brian’s body with it. And he is far more calm and collected about it than I am.
It is rectal cancer, the same thing that claimed our grandfather back in 1987. Brian knows exactly what he’s in for, because he was Papa’s caregiver in the last four months of Papa’s life.
It is possible that Brian’s long stint of living on the edge has helped prepare him for this next challenge. It’s also possible that he’s just putting on a brave front, but I doubt it. I think I would know. I’ve known him all his life.
And I love him. He is a great brother. He would do anything for family, including me. He is especially generous to the homeless. All are his brothers and sisters.
But this brother is having a hard time with this harsh reality, and has turned to creative expression as a means of coping. You’ll see some of the chaos of panic in the card below . . .
Part 2 will include transcription and annotation. Meanwhile, Brian has given me permission to ask all who read this to pray for him. He believes in the power of prayer, and I believe in the power of Brian plus prayer. Friends, please pray for my beloved brother Brian.
I have a friend I have never met in person. I do not even know how she pronounces her first name, which is Clottee. I have been pronouncing it “Cloh TAY” in my head. I will ask her next time we chat on Facebook.
Clottee has been posting extraordinary historical tidbits about slavery. The History textbooks in the schools I went to wouldn’t touch this stuff. So, following her posts, I’ve learned a lot about the routine cruelty of certain white folks and the fathom less imposed misery of certain black folks. The movie 12 YEARS A SLAVE, and the recently-revived TV series ROOTS, gave white-bread me a hint, but Clottee’s series yields a holographic panorama.
Her most recent entry profiles a remarkable woman, and reading about her I was compelled to do the above card. It was also a way to express gratitude to Clottee for her hard and diligent work.
there are baubles in the attic
riots in the fields a split in the council
unthriving sounds of caribou
ever-evanescent skyscape
People talk about signs of the Apocalypse. I’m not going to wax too apocalyptic here, but I am compelled to mention that I’ve witnessed more fights breaking out on our light rail in this calendar year than I’d seen in the previous five. Not a good sign.
Here’s my second try at Martin, who during lulls will join me at the podium and share his mordant observations about fashion disasters. Again I got carried away with the oil pastels, and this is a seriously flawed portrait. But because of this one, the next one will be better.
One with Clay, Image and Text 