Continuing to explore the possibilities of crayon, on a hunch I blocked out a simple pre-death scene, using a couple of widely-understood symbols. The crayon does seem to enhance spookiness.
There are more “suspects” in this Who’s Gonna Die mystery than meet the eye. Some viewers will come up with a far more interesting story than I ever could, and I would love to hear them…
Here is an “alternate Universe” version of a thing I did just shy of five years ago. It was in pencil and little of the acrostic poem was done. I made a copy of it, did some more peripheral drawing, inked it up, and added the complete (if occulted) poem and spot color.
Here is the poem, hidden lines and all, and acrostic line breakage disregarded for clarity:
Save the Lama for the Drama
Sown, when our flags and hearts are at half-staff
And self-appointed enemies would laugh
O, vested interests give pause. What for
Each involvement spawns esprit de mort
The Tragedies of living make us sigh:
How often pain seduces us to die.
E’en worse: to odd destruction we are led.
Lo: then more pained apocalypse ahead
Or altered consciousness or Disser A
Make head-in-sand-impostures take their aim.
A LOT of Aitch Why Pea Oh Ex Eye A.
Note: Aitch Why Pea Oh Ex Eye A spells Hypoxia, a condition of not enough oxygen delivered to the brain, inducing symptoms of blue-faced hallucinations.
The initial sketch, done recently, was an exercise: Use of Quiver-Lines to Emphasize Fear. Did it and moved on. Came back and learned that it wanted to be finished. Brought it to this stage of completion. It is not GUERNICA, nor the Sistine Chapel ceiling and walls, but it should tell a story a little bit different with each viewer.
[Originally published in the Facebook group Poets All Call, earlier today.]
five such things
there are five such things as desire
want
ambition
lust
appetite
dissatisfaction
and there are five such things as death
cessation
mortality
zero
discontinuity
oblivion
but there is only one such thing
as you where you are
receiving this message from me
wherever i may be
telling you that you are loved
and that you deserve
good tears and lusty laughter
and the overhauling
of pain
with riotous joy
there are eleven thousand
nine hundred and thirty-two
such
things
as
❤
“Break in the sun till the sun breaks down
And Death shall have no dominion.”
shadow on the moon
i throw a shadow on the moon
the sun recoils
the planets
S W O O N
Yesterday there was a Celebration of Life for my friend and classmate Charlie Rhodes. In the chapel, having arrived early, I wrote this before the Celebration began:
******
charlie rhodes, modest colossus
but deeper into the background is the bus ride home
and the driver and his colleague talking about a friend
who was forced to take a cab
it bothered them: it was like the shoemaker’s children barefoot
and the next layer down is the shift i worked
and a mistake i made that almost resulted in a reprimand
i had interrupted a server taking an order
and the diner rightfully took offense
and earlier than my shift was a sandwich:
busride/funeral/busride
a friend’s remains boxed and outside the box
grievers “celebrated” as best they could
jackson browne has finished singing
my feet feel better unshod
my shift ended well
my dead friend sleeps without bad dreams
*****
As midnight approached I finished the poem and the drawing above, and here we are.
I have only a handful of posts to do before my 1000th post. I want them to be among the best posts I’ve ever done, and I want the 1000th post to be the best of all. I want it to help justify my existence . . .
. . . and I may try too hard and clench up. So this is the cautionary “SLOW DOWN!” that Darlene Goto, extraordinary Art Teacher of two-thirds of my life ago, wrote by way of critique of my first submitted portfolio, in her Drawing & Composition class at Glendale Community College in the Fall semester of 1973. With the handful of pre-1000th posts to do, and seven weeks or so to work with, I will unclench and unrush and have fun and be loose.
Back in a week or so . . .
prince joins amy winehouse in the state we call death. it is comforting to imagine that in their shared state they are making collaborative music together.
both pushed the innovation envelope. both had to ignore some realities, and both paid the final price for that.
we who are left are left with their music. if it inspires us–and it has, especially among supremely talented musicians–they do not utterly die.
goneness
gadabouts on earth careen
o’er the mountains full serene
nonetheless we all lose friends
every lifetime journey ends
too restless to rest in peace
too alive for it to press as an issue
i and my mortality observe what must soon come
these words are one thing thought another learned
the harshness of audio
in telemetry
in the swiftly-pulled zipper of a body bag
drive us to many distractions
“alas” is wordsister to “love”
and death unnoticed by those he has claimed
Here’s an example of pen & ink, with the acrostic embellished with color permanent-ink Faber-Castell pens. Done back in Aught-Eight, when I was writing single-acrostic sonnets like crazy. The umbilicus, nasturtium, opossum and encyclical illustrate the first four lines.
Understandable
Umbilicuses pave the stem cell highway
Nasturtiums have ornamental blossums
Deliciousness sometimes requires opossums
Encyclicals so seldom see things my way.
Rich as a soil may be, if dry, it’s barren.
Soft kisses thrill–OR make the Ticklish jump.
The misbehaving hair may snarl & clump
Albeit seeming fair as Rose of Sharon.
Near Death, Experience is tartly flavored
Deliverance to Death’s Door bad-outrageous
Afflicted oldsters call for Priest or Magus:
Beneficence to help a soul be Favored–
Lo and Be Told: I’ll be a deathbed Coward–
Expect some yelping with this–UNempowered.
