crystal shaped
consider Fate as jigsaw pieces
rattling in a box. enmesh
your handful of pieces so a
satisfying array pops up
then realize it’s wrong–a trap
and that arrangement cannot be
lest cosmic law be violated
show tell
stage magicians may regret
holes in hat & serviette
on the right a storygirl
waging world peace whirl by whirl
There’s a book, a classic of science fiction, called MORE THAN HUMAN. The main characters are incomplete as individuals but have a way to do a thing called “bleshing,” which is a mashup of blending and meshing. One of the characters is known as Lone.
There’s a principle of biomechanics indicating a strong correlation between low body fat and success in marathons. Marathoner Hal Higdon had a total body fat around 9%. He also had an incredibly low resting heart rate–somewhere around 29 beats per minute. I am tooth-grindingly envious of such gifted people.
Rumor has it that a creature unlike any other dwells in Loch Ness.
Lone Lean Ness
Lifetimes loom beyond our ken
One’s a bleak Tragedienne
Nother quakes as Endgame nears
EVERYMAN still perseveres
There are two main types of Loneliness. One tastes of Solitude and the other of Uniqueness.
In Phoenix, Arizona, where I live, there is a light-rail conveyance that runs through town. Years before its construction I had a dream that there would be a train that ran through town, a commuter train like big cities like Chicago had. “What a crazy dream,” I thought on awakening. But it happened.
I ride it often, and am often struck by how many different universes it contains due to its passengers. There are the realities of going to work, coming home from work, coming home from prison, going off to do something that may end a body up in the slammer, heavily pregnant woman and her man, jeering student, motorchaired sufferer, baseball fan, dog-toter. Lives wildly unalike, intersecting in a passenger car.
chance glance
circumstances changing
holographic will
archetypes estranging–a
nail melts in a kiln
cello flute & voice harmonic
enter old realms, Hypersonicke
It is not a new idea that we are all prisoners in our own skulls, nor that walls by their nature keep some would-be invaders out and also keep the wall-builders in. Ecclesiastes says both “There is nothing new under the sun” and “all IS Vanity.” The newness is in observation of current conditions that uniquely apply. And in gimmickry, which is rife on this page, and in this acrostic poem.
Other Cages, Other Walls
O to S T O P that overflow
Topple stem and overthrow
Help a migrant to rejecta
Earn a nation’s cowed respect–a
Rig a mortis reach upHEAVE-all
CommanDante cache bequeathe
Aliens a fear-thee-well
Gain that Seventh Parallel
Eat our Wheaties wear our Nikes
See us altering our Psyches
Four friends, four poets, four engaging souls, four celebrations. Three are also event hosts and one is also participating in the Index Card A Day challenge, just as I am.
I acquired the photo I used for this drawing from a bittersweet event conducted by Four Chambers Press, which was closing its metaphorical doors. Called “From Our Heart To Yours,” the event was one last get-together that included a giveaway of everything Four Chambers had produced yet not sold. I took one of their anthologies, one of their poet’s chapbooks, a photo of Jake Friedman at a microphone–and the photo I based this drawing on. Among the liberties I took with the pic was moving the four poets around to achieve a more Mount-Rushmore-like arrangement.
4 Poets
Formed the phrases grab and pop
Forgotten time rebirthed just so
Foregone conclusion laid to waste
Formalities seem silliest
Foretaste of life’s peculiar truths
Today sees one of those feeling-uninspired sessions of trying to light a fire with wet matches. So–draw a skinny upper leg. Attach an asthenic young woman with an icebag on her knee, held down by her crossed wrists, holding a smartphone and possibly taking the viewer’s picture. Go on from there. Finish the page but, feeling undone, start another. Draw an eye, then its mate. Attach a dissipated-looking not-quite-young face to it. Draw and compose by the seat of your pants. Finish the page, unsatisfied.
View them both at once. Not as bad. One thing’s for sure, neither works by itself. Some of the poetry is OK.
Friends, welcome to The Creative Process on a day when the artist/poet feels anything but creative. Artists CANNOT WAIT for Inspiration. The creation-rheostat has a full range, from 100%, which is Effortless and Seems Like It’s Creating Itself, to 0%, which is Death Valley and Tooth Extraction and You Don’t Know What The Hell You’re Doing all rolled into one. But every bit of directed effort is part of the continuum, part of the tapestry. So we grind on when we must, and savor when it soars.
full stop
failed the tests
under arrest
let that cop go
lollipop
fake muse
falsecolor galaxy fruit of the loom
antioch prep deuteronomy u
kale & verbatimy transcript–no mas
endochrinology–lift demitasse
Grace Under Water
Grant us thunder & a law
Rip nonSense & blablabla
Access wonder & delight
Catch some breezes w/yr kite
Etch & render ❤ u tender
Isn’t it frustrating to get part of a message, and have the rest of the message be forever beyond your reach? But that is, truly, Life, for all but the omniscient. Our simian heritage gives us a busybody’s curiosity; biological and physical constraints give us opaque horizons, signal noise, the need for sleep and other homeostatic housekeeping, and the tragicomedy of a finite lifespan.
This page is at least as frustrating for me as it is for you, O Viewer. So much is beyond my talent-reach, and I seem always to be short on time. But if it helps, I only wrote the last line of “Mixing Signal,” which is “Got Me? O well,” and other than telling you that it is a persona poem with a Yahwehesque God as the persona, you are free to either write the rest yourself, synopsis it without regard to meter or rhyme, or treat it as merely a visual element.
Similar goes for “Bul[] Shi[]” though much more of the poem is visible. It is told from the point of view of a naysayer, and is an answer to “love echo” in the form of a sort of antiecho.
Bul[] Shi[]
Bombastitude has made a mess
Upyoursism oppresses flesh
Lamed intellect reverbs ennui
[.][…..] [……..] formed [..] Model [.]
Mystery fans, you now have all the clues you need to make some sense out of the last line. I don’t think anyone on Earth would be able to discern what the last line is, exactly, but the facts that Model is capitalized, and the rhyme-meter scheme revealed by the first two lines dictate that the last line be at minimum a near-rhyme of “ennui,” get you more than halfway there.
love echo
let those with baffled vision see
oppression plain as ABC
victorious are those who ooh
enlightenment’s a Bill & Coo
I had from 4:42 to 5:15 this morning to do this page, plus the knowledge that the words Every, Seven and Years are all five letters long. If more time–say three hours or so–becomes available today, I might do a more polished version.
Every Seven Years
Eat the sweet stuff happily
Victories come out to here
Enter venture out to sea
Riffed events become so clear
Y E A R N with widely scattered tears
Every day is an opportunity to wallow in the depressive miasma of guaranteed mortality. Some people seek such opportunities, some flee from them in such denial as “50 is the new 30,” and some get an unignorable knocking at the door.
DOOM METE MOOD
Doubt is such a Microcosm
Onus an Embarcadero
Otherwise a Tarantino
Might send messages Encrypted
mood meet doom
metabolism maladjusted
obsolescence wrecks a bed. o
one2three the dire days come. o
detriment is zero-sum
On the other hand, says the Mortality Denier, EVERY DAY is also an opportunity to experience the Joy of a Lifetime. Please, Friends, use kindness to seek such joy.
One with Clay, Image and Text 