the sun is not submersible.
mount everest is, but it would take some doing.
a remote is as submersible as the doomed ocean liner it resembles;
and the remoteness of contentment may lead to submersion…
a troubled heart is submersible
in the disguise of a denying, smiling face…
but if made buoyant by kindness,
and given healing given time and warmth,
the depth is less purposeful,
and the heart may rise,
mend,
seek light,
surface.
the hatched egg
does the hatched egg
exist?
once
it was all egg.
then
its confines harbored
a being
that in days
instructed by genes
used its new beak
to escape.
so
is
a hatched egg
an egg?
part of it
walked away as if on stilts.
the rest of it
is dried albumen
and calcium deposit.
shell,
not egg, plus
chicken,
not egg.
remnants
of egg
and a living,
fuzzy
miracle.
but there is
in the miraculous human mind
such a thing as a hatched egg.
the hatched egg is Renewal.
the hatched egg is The Resurrection
and The Life.
we fuzzy chicks,
recently renewed
and sticky with the amniotic drippings
of what harbored us,
stilt our new way out
and into the world.
sometimes we save our shells
in our scrapbooks.
My sincere apologies go out to Emma Thompson. In trying to learn her face I’ve brutalized it, taking Kimon Nicolaides’s advice to not be afraid to overwork a drawing in order to learn. Then I did another face study which was UNDERworked. Meanwhile the acrostic poem I cobbled up is full of vagueness, that nonspecificity that may not apply to Emma Thompson much but does not not apply to her. In my defense, Ms. Thompson, the final image and poetry will benefit from these early egregiousnesses.
That said, I did find a cracking good quotation from Meryl Streep that says a lot about the real Emma Thompson as reported by the real Meryl Streep. Therefore, along with what I’ve learned by falling on my face with my versions of her face, plus the inclusion of the all-important word Wit in the acrostic, I’m compelled to declare victory in the execution of stage 2 of 6 of The Emma Thompson Project.
Quoth Meryl Streep regarding Emma Thompson: “She works like a stevedore, she drinks like a bloke, and she’s smart and crack and she can be withering in a smack-down of wits, but she leads with her heart.”
Words to the THOMPSON EMMA double acrostic:
The screen & stage enjoy her vital flame
Her honesty–an ethical gendarme
Harmonics with some dissidence the theme
Outstanding nuanced capturing the aim
Might find her as a widow on a farm
Morose and grappling with her self-esteem
Perhaps a crisis or a death may loom
Perhaps a challenge to her wit & charm
Swept by the wind or by a careless broom
Old–young–carefree, or full of belladonna
No telling what the consequence of karma
Nor even what variety of fauna
Having drawn (bp) a successful conclusion to The Stan Getz Project, this reporter decided to stay on the horse, and so begins The Emma Thompson Project. Why Emma? Short answer: her brave smile.
A legal pad is a good place to begin. It’s cheap and safe. When you’re getting to know a face, it pays to try several times.
“Thompson Emma” is better acrostic fodder than “Emma Thompson” would be, but this is just get-acquainted time and, in the course of learning about Ms. Thompson’s life, a more apt acrostic may present itself. As I’ve said before, Art Spiegelman’s MetaMaus taught me the value of rough drafts for concept exploration.
Since this project is on spec, i.e. uncommissioned, there is no deadline and are no pre-agreed parameters. My main goal is to produce an image that, were Ms. Thompson to see it, will cause her not to smile bravely, but to grin happily.
More to come anon, Friends!
a great-grandfather takes off his shirt and reveals his resemblance to a mudslide
the avalanche of his crepey flesh is offputting to some
his daughter twists her forearm and reveals the ghost of crepe to come
she compares it to her son’s coarse-hair-forested smooth-skinned arm and she sighs
he picks up his baby girl with her micropore blemishless hide
and rejoices in her perfection
a great-grandmother is watching them all with tearmist moistening her spectacles
with a five-word loop in her despairing head:
“the way of all flesh”
I am thrilled to report that the Stan Getz drawing, prepared for, executed, and framed, has been delivered to the gentleman who commissioned it, and he has indicated that he is completely satisfied with the result. He also added a $20 bonus to the $200 we agreed on at the outset. The above image is the drawing in the frame, cropped to preserve the anonymity of the owner, who is holding the framed drawing so that I could take a picture of it.
Previously, I’d taken pictures of the drawing, and also tried scanning it in halves and splicing the halves, since it was too big to fit on the scanner bed. Here’s that spliced image, photoedited for color and drama:
Before we parted company my friend and benefactor paid me a compliment that I’ll gladly keep. He’d seen Stan Getz portrait attempts, and many of the artists ALMOST got him, but not quite; “but you got him.” Now that makes my day, and makes me smile.
POP goes the culture
Prepare for Judgment Day sang Judy Garland
Onstage in fishnet, tux and tilted hat
Perhaps a southern gentleman named Harland
got bucketed with her & chicken fat
one never knows & that’s how rumors start
evangelizing scandal grists the mills
so Liz & Nicky/Eddie/Dick take part
take center stage take umbrage & take pills
how tragic for a Marilyn or Janis
eclipsed not just by death but also boredom
Comes Jerry Springer’s antics to unman us
until we’ve seen it all in all its whoredom
let’s
take
up
rumor-mangling and pray
elation puts the brakes on Judgment Day
For my fifth and final Stan Getz facial detail, I used a photo of him at rest. He looks like he’d put in a rugged session either recording or performing. Through his tired eyes I saw vulnerability and need.
The Stan Getz commissioned drawing is finished. Tomorrow I will deliver it. I’ll never hear jazz the same way again–that’s a good thing indeed.
“boy” and “kite” and “wind”
kite: lightwood doweling, rice paper, rice glue, string
wind: out of the northwest, 3-7mph, some gusts
a pilgrim represented as a boy
holds his life represented as a kite
facing fate represented by the wind.
the pilgrim feels fate push against his life.
to get his life aloft
he will supplement fate with effort
represented by his running like the wind.
aloftness
is subject to
not only the variant wind
plus the speed of the running boy,
but also the surface on which the boy runs
and that which rests on or moves over the surface.
the surface and its denizens
may be thought of as additional fate,
but they are really proof
that metaphors are crude attempts
by the allegorical minds that build them
to cope
through reduction.
the kite vanishes.
the wind dies.
the boy weeps.
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” –Robert A. Heinlein
My friend from the Philippines, Marlyn Exconde, just challenged me, thus:
*****
love in ten lines
they who love truly–
with a heartfelt love–
dispense that love willingly,
without reciprocal love required.
love is radiant waveforms.
love is not shakedowns.
love is wishing well;
love returned freely, priceless.
love may seem “lost,”
but LOVE waves–always.
*****
As for nominating ten or so to do this challenge, I nominate S., G., M., K., B., C., A., D., J., and F. If you’ve read this far, and your first name begins with one of those letters, consider yourself nominated! 🙂
