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Tag Archives: acrostic

false horizon falser horizontal

September 16, 2014
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One reason there are lots of instruments in the cockpit of an airplane is that sometimes pilots cannot rely on their senses. Their semicircular canals tell them one thing, the view out the window another, and the instruments contradict both. To stay alive, a pilot often has to literally fly in the face of what the body says.

In life, a sense of well-being may just mean that the brain chemistry is literally on the high side of the manic-depressive cycle. Ingesting alcohol or other drugs often imbues the user with undeserved confidence. If you don’t have instruments, like a penlight for the Nystagmus test or a Breathalizer for the measurement of blood alcohol, when in doubt, don’t, no matter what wonderful sense it seems to make, whether it be calling that lost love at three in the morning or shaving/tattooing  your head or entering the wonderful world of amateur day trading. (Sorry to be so parental.)

Here are the words:

Fate denied me being pharaoh
And you say, it’s best that, Gair-O
Lap up your courvoisier
Lapdogs may include Sharpei
Salvage peace/shalom/La Paz
Serenity is no palazzo
Eternity by daw-do-zen
Ernest earnestly got bent
Rovers flying o’er alfalfa
Race past baffleds on El Al

Trail–Tom Mix–Spoon

September 15, 2014
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Anyone heard of Trail Mix? Sure you have!

Anyone heard of Tom Mix? No? Well, he was a movie cowboy. He pre-dated, and paved the way for, John Wayne. There’s a book called TOM MIX DIED FOR YOUR SINS. When Robert Bloch, author of PSYCHO, was asked by Philip Jose Farmer if he’d read the book, he replied, “No, and I haven’t read JESUS CHRIST AT THE 101 RANCH either.” This not only made Phil laugh, it inspired some writing of his, including some in his world-famous RIVERWORLD series.

Anyone following my blog knows that I have a spoon fetish. Sorry!

Anyone heard of the MX Missile? No! We haven’t! Or we don’t want to! “MX whistles” are OK, though.

Here are the words to this double-double-quadruple super-duper Acrostic:

Tried a contrail’s atmospherics
Rode a comet’s utmost deep
Asteroids are poised to go
Is SPACE full of foistings? NO
Launching MX whistles–fun

Carol Hogan, Cutter of Sand

September 11, 2014
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Carol Hogan is a cutter of sand two ways. First, she’s the editor of SANDCUTTERS, the quarterly publication of the Arizona State Poetry Society. It was she who raised the publication from a black&white chapbook to a color-covered nicepaper showcase with a real spine.

Second, she’s always drawing lines in the sand. She is a female Don Quixote, tilting against the Koch Brothers and other creatures of corporate greed. I’d cast her as Galdalf in a gender-bending version of LORD OF THE RINGS, standing on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm and telling the Balrog “You cannot pass!!” in her quivery voice. (Carol says she lost her voice some time ago, but I did not get details.)

Last Saturday Carol came to my mother’s house to photograph various of my ceramic works. She intends to feature me in SANDCUTTERS as the next in her series of poets who are also artists. She and Mom hit it off well, and there is talk of future visits.

Here are the words to Carol’s double acrostic:

Clasp a tempest–Oh! Oh! Oh
And the beaches stir her so
Rioting with verse & blog
OUT the blahs and ON the gaga
Living on a swift toboggan

Brigand’s Mortar (Brick & Mortar)

September 9, 2014
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Brick and Mortar, and equivalents thereof, are fine in moderation. Are we as a species moderate? An Internet search on Dubai buildings will provide a fun answer. Not that I’m knocking Dubaians and their innovative excess. If I had more money than I knew what to do with, Cutting-Edge Architecture would be a great place to throw it.

But Urban Sprawl, made possible by that “I claim this land in the name of Spain” mindset that is this-century obsolete, made of the Valley of the Sun where I grew up a fungus of humanity, spreading up and over the mountains every which way, and far beyond the Valley’s borders. “Brick & Mortar” is now recognized as a largely unnecessary venue for business. Let us move on.

Here are the words to the double acrostic, making Ands of the ampersands for the sake of clarity:

Bursting out- and upward, our explosive growth goes boom
Reaching for the brass ring’s old–we charge like raging sumo
Instant towers scrape the sky where once was merest rumor
Clearing forests calls for disregard of owl and wombat
Keeping books reduces Life to uptick and pro rata
Andes-climbing’s easier than knowing what should matter

 

Geek-A-Rama

July 3, 2014
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The Urban Dictionary’s #1 definition of Geek is “The people you pick on in high school and wind up working for as an adult.” The kids I drew on this page are still being picked on, but they know they rock.

Here are the words to the triple acrostic:

Good LORD–feel that enthusiasm–each a superstar
Enjoy our radiation: safe enough for Gramp & Gamma
EnDANGERment is mocked–we use a Death’s-head-grin alarm
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar holds court within our diorama

Note also the hidden message via blacked-up letters: “THUS–ugh–Death holds our wit.”

Speaking of the awesome, starring-in-AIRPLANE! Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who just wrote a guest column about racism in a major publication, long ago I made up this riddle about him:

Q: What should you sing if Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has his thumb in your coffee cup as he’s handing it to you?

A: “You’re the Kareem in my Coffee…”

Yes, I’m a Joke Geek. And vice versa.

Picasso was a Jerk

July 2, 2014
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Recently TIME Magazine profiled a retrospective of Jeff Koons. Mr. Koons is a good four months younger than I am, yet he’s seen work of his sold for a cool 58.4 million dollars. Once I sold a piece of mine for $250.00, but then the gallery took its 20%. Sigh.

It reminded me of this page, of a pioneer of not only Art but of an artist’s self-promotion:

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Here are the words to the acrostic sonnet, with apologies for the clumsiness of Line 5:

What Picasso Had

Well, Pablo had a round head–that’s for starters;
His Bald and Bulbous Noggin was a Moon;
A gorgeous Harem–Demoiselles & Martyrs;
The cheek to make a napkin-drawn cartoon

Pay for three demoiselles’ Euro-Vacation;
Intensity of Focus . . . FEAR of Death . . .
Chicago’s streets to sculpt a Big Sensation;
A knack for Marketing with Every Breath.
Some envy his long life, his wealth, his Women,
Success like that some Art aspirants strive for;
Oh, nothing’s wrong with Fame to smile & swim in,

However, it’s unseemly to connive for.
Ahhh–I’ll not judge him. ART’ll; FATE’ll; GOD’ll;
Don’t know–but I won’t use him as a Model.

(Of behavior, that is. He was a real and true Jerk. See SURVIVING PICASSO for a taste of his Jerkiness, not to mention a stellar performance by Sir Anthony Hopkins. Quoth Wikipedia: “Picasso is shown as often not caring about other people’s feelings, firing his driver after a long period of service, and as a womanizer, saying that he can sleep with whomever he wants.”)

 

Involvements

June 30, 2014
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Here is another finally-finished page.

The words to the single-word double acrostic are these:

Index cards & social meme
Novice hack or reader’s dream
Voices shrill can drill to bone
Orders strict tell despot’s notion
Lavish love creates its quotient
Vortex waves have force of oceans

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The meaning to this one is less elusive if you think of the words with the image as not describing a universal truth, but one person’s relationship/maturation journey, and that person someone you’re just getting to know.

Desperate But Sequel

June 24, 2014
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Here is something I started over a month ago and invited collaboration (see the post “Seven, Eight–Collaborate”). One brave soul told me there would be a try; that I have not heard from the brave soul since casts no aspersion on said soul. Collaboration is tricky.

Indeed, collaboration ended up being the theme of this, now finished, page:

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And here are the words of the triple-acrostic sonnet:

Desire may ebb when disillusion flows
Endangering stability, which flees
Each time de-Liberation strikes a pose
Some issues turn to Beasts none may appease
Proceed OUTSIDE the box, and P.D.Q.
Example: cure your Beef with B.B.Q.
Rescind your doubt! Do what WILL do for you
And with each therapeutic molecule
Add TLC that’s stubborn as a Mule
The optioned limitation with accrual
Ensures the Trust that leads to Love’s renewal

“Desperate But Sequel” hearkens back to the bad old days of “Separate But Equal.” Alas, Racism is still alive and “well” more than a half-century later. Not much more we can do about that but get our own houses in order (see Avenue Q’s “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”).

The image is a four-shot sequence wherein two people are irritating each other’s stiff backs, then find a synergistic solution when they loosen up a little and rub together. I am ridiculously proud of this metaphor for relational friction. Honest to Goodness, I have no memory of ever seeing this bit of storytelling before–but I suspect I’m not the first…

Seen From Next Weak Show

June 17, 2014
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One unfortunate thing about growing up in the early 60s is that the phenomenon of Television Syndication was first getting real–and they started with Lassie and continued with Leave It To Beaver. Supposedly there are seven or so basic stories in the human story grab-bag, but Lassie and Beaver only used one each. The Lassie story: Little Her-Name-Here is trapped under a lean-to in the woods, and she doesn’t have her medicine. Lassie finds her, barks his/her heinie off to the nearest first responder, who finally gets the message and follows Lassie just in time to rescue the stricken child. Then Lassie goes back to June Lockhart and the rest of the family, only to find Timmie stirring his uneaten food around with his fork because he’s afraid Lassie will never return. O joy that Lassie is back safe and sound–till the next episode. (After a few years, the townspeople rescued by Lassie outnumbered those who hadn’t been.)

The Leave It To Beaver story: Beaver and his pals talk about doing something really neat, but they’ll get in trouble if they do it. They all agree to do it the next day. Only Beaver does it, and he gets in trouble. Ward gives him a good talking to, and Beaver learns a valuable lesson–which he promptly UNlearns in time for the next episode. (Oliver Sacks should have studied him and his short-term memory loss.)

My Three Sons, I Love Lucy, My Friend Flicka, Sky King–all had basic stories, not well told, flogged to death. So I have decided to tell a NEW story. It is at most eighteen words long, but there are pictures. It relates to the discussion above, but obliquely. The reader will have seven puzzles to solve. Five of them are pretty easy: How do the pictures illustrate the five acrostic words? The sixth is only a little harder: Which one of the acrostic words illustrates the picture illustrating it, and why? But the seventh one can take from half an hour to forever: What story can be told that will logically link all of the illustrations? Solving THAT one, dear Reader, will make you a better storyteller.

Here’s the image/story/quintuple acrostic:

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