the real me
when searching for the real me
a thousand falsehoods i did see
and then a chiding voice said “you!
look elsewhere or you’ll lose the true.
you need more sisters and more brothers.
the real you resides in others.”
In earlier posts there were prototype/preliminary sketches of Daniel. They were unsatisfactory. I showed them to Daniel and said so, and he was kind enough and interested enough to provide a couple of photographs for me to work from. The above index-card portrait is the result, which did seem to capture both likeness and personality to some extent. Daniel seemed pleased, and also authorized its use in this blog post.
The next in the series will be Erika, whose credo is “Live each day as if it were your last.” Please stay tuned!
At long, long last my Residential Drawing Station is operational, and I have many to thank. The fluorescent drawing-table lamp was a gift from my parents more than forty years ago. The pencil was part of a package of pencils given me by my then-wife, Joni, about eight years back. The light tablet, a marvelous surface to draw on, came on a Christmas from my then-sweetheart, Denise. The Captain America shield/eraser was a freebie acquired at the Jack Kirby Birthday Celebration, courtesy of my friend Russ Kazmierczak, Jr. The Bookmans goodie bag is from my fabulous Steady Girlfriend, Joy. And the coffee? The coffee was, is, and always will be a Gift From The Gods.
The work in progress is signed and dated today, and therefore must be finished by midnight tonight. Got to get cracking. Thanks so much, everyone!!
My last blog post, “A Ten-Poem Day,” included a scrambled-up version of the above portrait. i’d originally planned to switch images if and when Socorro gave me the go-ahead to post. now, though, I’m inclined to give Socorro a post of her own.
About eight years ago I saw an Internet ad for a social website that said “Under 50 Need Not Apply.” I was 52, and a site for over-50 folks sounded good. That site was the late, lamented eons.com. It was my first experience with social media. I didn’t do Facebook till much later.
One of the first things I found was a poetry group called Callling All Poets, which Socorro had created. I joined it and loved it, participating enthusiastically.
Her username on Eons was Pajarito. We called her PJ. She was, and is, encouraging, uplifting, and motherly. Not for her was the deconstructive critique, nor putdowns of any kind. Anyone wanting input on their writing need only ask; it would come by private message if potentially embarrassing.
Of course, a few times people joined who didn’t subscribe to the ethic of encouragement and uplift. I remember two in particular. One was scathingly sarcastic; the other one was a legend in his own mind who wanted us all to benefit from his superior approach to poetry, and no other approach would do. Socorro dealt with them both with honest directness, first with a warning and then with the classic heave-ho. She has always stayed a nurturing course.
And when Eons foundered, Socorro took us to Facebook. Now we are Poets All Call, 70 members strong.
I’ve written hundreds of poems expressly for Socorro’s group. It is a nice nesty poet’s haven. And she is a wonderful leader and friend. I’ll always be grateful to her.
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
Tick, tick, tick. The Deadline Clock is inexorable. The Glendale Juried art show will cease accepting entries at noon on Saturday, January 3rd. But I and my entry or entries (max: 2) must be there by 10:30am or sooner, because I and my Sweetheart must be miles away by 11:15.
Here is a work in progress, and it has a LONG ways to go–and that’s not counting matting and framing. (Faithful blog readers will recognize it as compositionally similar to “Spectral Sanctums,” but words have been excised and the ubiquitous Spoon added.)
I may not meet the dreaded Deadline, but it’s great to be using the drawing board for something other than a dumping ground for stacks of papers and other impedimenta.
Wish me luck, Friends!
Denise’s family is visiting. Her granddaughter was drawing, and I offered her $2 to draw Dixon, the family dog. She accepted the challenge but declined payment. “How about this?” I counteroffered. “You draw Dixon, and I’ll draw whatever you want, and we’ll trade.” She asked for a cute pig. I asked for the pig’s name and she said Phillip. I drew this:
She drew this, and I’d say I got the better end of the bargain:
Exchanging kid stuff proves to me that you’re NOT only a kid once. You can be a kid any time you draw pictures with another kid.
Here is the consummate environmentalist. She fearlessly spoke out against the profligate use of pesticides, which she wisely renamed “biocides,” and her successful battle against the propaganda and dirty-dealing of such as DuPont was the single most important factor in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Thanks to Wikipedia, YouTube, and any number of environmental websites on the Internet, her passionate voice may be heard instantly by anyone with computer access. Her message is just as timely as it was in 1962, the year of publication of her Silent Spring, whose title refers both to the loss of birdsong due to pesticide collateral damage and the potential Earthwide silence should the rapists of Mother Earth continue their fell practices.
I am working on a double-acrostic poem and page on her which will be the final needed ingredient for my manuscript of Natural Distractions, the poetry/image collection that I’ve been working on every day. Here is the work in progress:
ETA on the completed manuscript, and with it the completed Rachel Carson page, is tomorrow morning. Upon its completion I’ll convey it to David Chorlton, a fine environmental defender in his own right, for editorial assistance. Stay tuned! [determined smile]
The photo was taken on Sedona’s Bell Rock some time ago. At lower left is the shadow of the wayfarer’s head. In the midground is a cairn, a trail marker of stones cylinderized with baling wire. From each cairn not the beginning nor end the wayfarer ought to be able to see the cairn preceding and the cairn following. As long as there is a cairn in sight, then, the wayfarer is never lost; and, indeed, at upper right the wayfarer sees the next cairn on the journey.
There have been 676 posts in the two years of this blog, whose anniversary is today. Once Sam Shepard was asked how many plays he had written, and his answer was “Too damn many.” I saw his Fool for Love at a Phoenix-local theater about twenty years ago. It was good and weird.
I am going to use the love I have for making posts in this blog to incentivize the completion of a manuscript I started, with editorial help from award-winning poet David Chorlton, more than a year ago. I will be limiting my blog posts to one a week until the manuscript is finished.
After I finish the manuscript (working title: Natural Distractions), I’ll resume regular posting until the end of the year. Then I’ll finish the second manuscript I’ve got hanging fire, for a children’s book with the working title Sizegirl and Cloudboy. Again, I’ll be one-a-weeking this blog till that ms. is in the rearview mirror.
Somewhere in there should be Volume II of LIVES of the Eminent Poets of Greater Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve done at least as many poet page/profiles as I did for Volume I–declaring victory and bundling it all up has been long overdue. Disorganization has been the bugaboo of my creative existence.
In addition to, and aside from, all that, my realio trulio creative heart’s desire is making large-scale versions of the best of my pages. I hope to do at least one such in time for entry into the Glendale Arts Council’s juried show I enter every year.
That about sums up Where To, conceptually anyway. Please wish me luck and wherewithal, dear Reader!
we put some stuff in our mouths
and open the food-intake part of our throats
and the stuff goes down the esophageal chute
and in about eleven seconds
it goes to a holding area known as the stomach
which uses an acid bath to leach the good stuff
and sends it on its duodenal way to be absorbed
via fingerlings called villi
and on down through windings of sausage-casings stuff
and the good stuff gets taken some here some there
and the extra or bad stuff gets packaged for offloading
and it all bears a resemblance to taking a stream of thought
and worrying the good engagement out of it
and refining it into words
while extracting the extraneous and the wrong
via backspace delete and cut
each of our glorious bodies are editors
chemical processors
and fertilizer manufacturers
and why that is a source of shame and not pride
is in the labyrinthine history of our convoluted culture
One with Clay, Image and Text 