It does not please her to exist,
This Bird that I have made.
She glares at me with glaze-glared eye
And dreams of hells in which I fry
Because a sculpture cannot fly,
And I with ambulation blissed
Ensouled her shade in shade.
When you want intense blue
Cobalt will do.
For white/miscellaneous
Go porcellaneous.
For a texture of nub
Try Crawling Glaze, Bub.
With motile non-sessiles
Do Handle your vessels.
And Showcased Absurdity?
Use Unreal Birdity.
noeyes
“…as you stare into the vacuum/of his eyes…” Bob Dylan, “Like a Rolling Stone”
he is noeyed/nevertheless he is eyeing us all
judging
looking out at you and seeing foibles
waiting for another slip
and that is why he is there on my home screen
amongst stuff i often use
i made him to watch me/keep me mindful/let me know twin abysses abide/and every moment counts
i stare him down to prepare for a challenge
he wants to intimidate but hey
i can see right through him/so can you
“Acceptance,” said Sabi, “is paramount.”
“Albinos,” said Wabi, “are weird.”
“You’ve weirdness yourself. Quite a fair amount.”
“You’re one to talk,” Weird Wabi sneered.
.
“Look. She’s got some eggs. Instant family!”
“Good point. I would be down with that.”
“Hey, Dabi, you’re IN,” Sab said hammily.
Thus ended the brief, perfect spat.
i was a lump of clay
i am a flightless bird
i will be on display
now isn’t that absurd
.
to get the rapt attention of
supporters of the arts?
a pedestal’s detention, love,
confines and wilts and smarts.
.
the trouble is when i was made
my wright made me a soul
and now i’m frozen, senseless, stayed…
but Love
may make
me whole…
cup, bird, bird, and mug await the fire,
a squadlet facing fate. alas, all will not survive. worse, it is the bird
with the eggs, the one on whom the highest hopes were pinned, that will suffer
decapitation.
irreparable.
.
the sculptor is philosophical. if i make another version of this one, it will be better.
then a sigh. it will not be as alive.
then a shrug. plenty of fish in the sea and on the plate. plenty of birds in the wind and in the clay.
there is a moment of silence. so long old pal.
****
Afterword: Grateful acknowledgment to Fannie Flagg, author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, for the last four words of the poem above.
Today at PIP Coffee and Clay these two items came from the bisque kiln. The one on the left is a closed vessel with a cut-out lid. I have given it to PIP’s barista and resident sculptor Nadia L as a wedding present. She married her sweetheart Daniel some weeks ago. “Glaze it any way you want,” I told her.
The form on the right, while avian, is not quite a bird. Look closely and you’ll see a host of weirdnesses, because in the joy of sculpting, adherence to reality went out the window.
I’m still here at PIP, enjoying sparkling mineral water and waiting for 1:30 PM, when my second 3-hour session begins. I feel the mojo, and have a lot to do!
i was lengths of roll-tubed clay/alchemy performed today/made me beach bum beach ball cat/cell phone on the side no hat/so i use my hand for shade
vaguely hoping to get laid/vaguely wishing for a towel/but there is no need to growl/i’ll just chill on canvas beach/vague existence tastes like peach
i woke near midnight
there seemed to be murmurs coming from the front room/which since i live alone and have no radio/was creepy and scary
i swung the door to the front room open/to silence/to no murmurs/to just whispery traffic noise/and the high-pitched soundthread/of mild tinnitis
i closed the connecting door and went back/to bed/and soon dozed/but in minutes woke/to murmuring
marched to the door but stopped/listened/couldn’t hear much/but it was more than traffic noise
carefully silently opened the door
the sound stopped
closed the door but not completely/and at the edge of audibility/there seemed to be more murmuring
got an idea got my phone/opened the sound recorder app/set it to record/left the phone in the front room near the birds/went to bed
drowsed/dozed/sank into/the velvet starscape/of slumb THEN A CAR ALARM WENT OFF RIGHT BY THE BEDROOM DOOR BWEEP BWEEP BWEEP BWEEP EE-AH EE-AH EE-AH EE-AH KEEZO KEEZO KEE–
then abruptly ended
i went back into the front room/got my phone and pressed stop/and the display said 3:14 and i pushed the play arrowhead
and there WAS a sound as if of distant voices/but i could not parse individual words/except perhaps near the end
hard to tell but it sounded like a hoarse old crow diffused in the fog of distance
“he needs to make more of us”
followed by an indistinct murmur of bird-assent AND THEN THE CAR ALARM WENT OFF BOTH ON THE RECORDING AND OUTSIDE THE WINDOW BWEEP BWEE*
i stopped the playback/at the exact instant the second car alarm stopped
you win, birds
I will make more of you
a potter a sponge an x-acto knife a potter’s wheel a wire tool a needle tool a bucket of water a trimming tool and five pounds of white sandless clay
made a globular vase form let it firm up cut it free from the wheel head turned the vase upside down carefully centered and buttressed with a thick clay roll
trimmed away excess clay righted the vase centered and buttressed it again
and then the needle tool made guidelines the x-acto knife sliced the form into segments and the clay segments were baked in a kiln
and the potter took the fired-clay segments and tried several arrangements and arrived at one that felt super-right but needed something
and the search for that something amid already-fired oddments yielded a tiny egg shape and a corpuscular micronest for it to perch on
and the arrangement zinged
One with Clay, Image and Text 