ICAD 2023, day 7: Enigma
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Tag Archives: art
ICAD 2023, day 6: Anne Meara
I’ve been a fan of Anne Meara since she and Jerry Stiller were on the Ed Sullivan Show as Stiller & Meara. My favorite performance of hers was in the 1980 version of FAME. Fun fact: she won a Writers Guild award.
ICAD 2023, day 5: egg
egg
i intend today to throw
most of an egg on a potter’s wheel
and then sculpt a hummingbird
when the almost-egg is leather hard
I intend to cut its base at a bias
to give it a jaunty axial tilt
then perch the hummingbird
at its apex
absurdly out of scale
with the huge egg
it is valiantly attempting
to incubate
it may show how heroic
motherhood is
or how ridiculous
life is
the egg may have cutouts
to give it a windowed interior
or embossing
to give it a muralesque exterior
it is impossible to say yet
sometimes we just have to see
what happens
when it hatches
ICAD 2023, day 3: Q&A
hale
hale
memorial day is for remembrance
of soldiers who died
serving their country.
“hale” is both a description
of a person in a state of robustness
and a surname.
george washington needed a volunteer to spy
behind british lines and get intel on the brits.
captain nathan hale alone stepped up.
hale was a bright kid, a yale graduate at eighteen,
a schoolteacher at twenty. now he was a spy.
alas, he was soon recognized and ratted out.
a british soldier who witnessed hale’s death
wrote in his diary “he behaved
with great composure and resolution.”
on the gallows he supposedly said
“i only regret, that i have but one life,
to lose for my country.”
but his brother enoch asked around
and was told that nathan gave a longer,
spirited speech,
and said among other things that
if he had ten THOUSAND lives,
he would lay them ALL down for his country.
today, America’s memorial day, I think
of that bright, patriotic kid of twenty-one,
and of his courage and dignity.
NaPoWriMo 2023, day 5: Trio
I have just finished Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers. It is one of the finest novels I have ever read. It succeeds as a mystery novel, as a period piece, as a commentary on social stratification, and as a complex and magnificent love story. It is the third tale in the saga of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, Strong Poison and Have His Carcase being the first two. All three are superb, but Gaudy Night is the capstone.
The three acrostic poems on this page were inspired by the story of Harriet and Peter. The strictures of the acrostic forms I use and of brevity make them analogous to Plato’s Myth of the Cave in terms of reflecting the actuality of the love story, but those who have read any of the three books will hear an echo.
Downfall
Deliver a roman à clef
Designed to cure the blind & deaf
Of incomplete sensoria
Which then restores euphoria
Now Knowledge, that most bitter pill
Necessitates a lonely hill
Free Pass
Fret & weep
Fall asleep
Rouse the area
Raise hysteria
Enter Bliss
Extra kiss
High Time
Heavens! We’ll be late for T
If, though, you’ve the dough-re-mi
Glean & dawdle; twinkle; gleam
Hasten not! It spoils the scheme
NaPoWriMo 2023, day 4: prepku
prepku//under a chef’s knife/a carrot becomes batons/then it becomes cubes
NaPoWriMo 2023, day 3: A-G
A poem that acrosticizes the alphabet is known as an abecedarian. The first three syllables are pronounced A B C. Then say the name Darian, and you’re home.
Aay Bee Cee Dee Eee Eff Gee
Abracadabra, a cadre of dreamers! Whoopee! OMG
Antedeluvian essences wheedle the Infinite
Yes, let us feed wildebeests ending strife in our Noble Cause spree
Since each line has a related-but-different meter, I make bold to suggest that April 3, 2023 is the day Slant Meter was invented. There will probably be zero seismic upheaval in the world of poetry, but not bad for a chubby old guy with a bent heart, eh? 🙂
NaPoWriMo 2023, day 2: Tap
“Tap” is one of those marvelous itty-bitty words that can mean any of a number of things. You may be tapped for a promotion. You may hear gentle rain on your window. There may be a Raven ready to repeat a maddening word, wanting you to let her in. Or you may be out of funds–tapped out. (I just tapped that on my laptop.)
So I have drawn the master of tap dancing, Sammy Davis Jr., doing what he did superbly. Next to him is a tableau vivant of a man walking, and the tap on his shoulder by a lady who is about to change his life. Next to them is the prosaic and eminently useful Water Tap, based on my bathroom-sink faucet.
Tap TapTapTap Tap
The door goes rat-a-tat-a-tat
To tell a Caller’s on the mat
They may complain about your cat
A dancer taps into nostalgia
And then he has fibromyalgia
As always, Entropy will gouge ya
Penultimately we may gasp
Plead if we hear a gravelled rasp
Perhaps we feel the REAPER’S grasp
National Poetry Writing Month 2023, day 1: A Fool Aloof
A Fool Aloof
All of us love Cinderell A
Few of us a spitting came L
One of us makes turnip jell O
Overactive as Othell O
Let us grade this wayward fellow… F
Cinderella, of course, is the classic Rags-to-Riches story. Camels do spit and most of us find that disagreeable. Turnip Jello does not exist, except here; so there is only one maker. (Fun fact: my middle name, Wright, means “maker.) And Othello had an overactive imagination, an overactive murderous urge, and an overactive tendency to believe what he was told.
In my country, the letter F denotes more than one thing. In the case of a grade, F stands for Failure, Failing, or Fail. Since the last line didn’t rhyme one the last word, the acrostic literally gets an F.
Happy April Fool’s Day, Friends!
One with Clay, Image and Text 