Here is a page both finished and not. While I was doing the acrostic I heard her voice asking me to stop–so I stopped. Readers curious about her may find her in Wikipedia and on YouTube.
My path to acrostic poetry began when I was twelve years old, and a Dell Crossword Puzzles book cost thirty-five cents. The book wasn’t all crossword puzzles. My favorite feature was Solicross, where they gave you a nine-by-nine grid and put a circle in one of the squares, blacked out three others, put point values on the rest, gave you a letter list, and let you go to town. It is quite similar to Scrabble, but a Scrabble grid is 15 by 15.
So here’s to Solicross (property of Dell), and to Scrabble (property of Hasbro). Long may they wave!
For over a week, ever since I saw Les Misérables, Anne Hathaway has been singing “I Dreamed a Dream” OVER and OVER in my head. Yesterday I got desperate and decided on exorcism via journal-page. It didn’t work. The page is done, but she’s STILL singing in my head. Somehow this proves that she will win an Oscar for her stirring performance as Fantine.
These are shaky times. I felt the shakiness back in March, and though the fellow in my drawing being pitchforked and jackhammered and otherwise beset looks more like a younger George Carlin than me, I think he may well be a psychological self-portrait. Here are the words: Never grab coyotes by the ruff Nor contain a toxic load of stuff Even if your sitch is cause to fear Even though they're shoving from the rear Ragged edges tugging at the sclera Raw reporting LIVE by Al Jazeera Vermiform appendices display Vanquished methods causing harm today Evanescence wills us to degrade Stilled propriety leaves us unpaid
Here are the lyrics to this quadruple acrostic: Participation ends the stress/Omits the odious unrest/Obliges one too sweet to sour/Destiny's dust to hold the shroud/Let's elevate & love a whale/Endemic to those furling sail I did this just shy of a year ago, and the words didn't make sense today till I realized lines three and four were one subthought, and "too sweet to sour Destiny's dust" was the crucial phrase. Also the acrostic is a distant cousin to "My Favorite Things" by Rodgers & Hammerstein.
Last Friday saw the very last combining of forces between the Phoenix art gallery Deus Ex Machina and the poetry event Caffeine Corridor, hosted by Shawnte Orion and Jack Evans. It was my favorite venue to perform and to spectate. The event will continue, at another gallery down the street, but it will not be quite the same.
Now we type our morning blog. We pray the Lord our mind unfog. And if our readers care to glom us, they’ll see our sketch of Dylan Thomas.
Yesterday I sliced the middle finger of my left hand deeply, just south of the fingertip, as I reached into the toiletries pocket of my travel bag for the Gillette Good News razor with which I intended to shave. (The bad-news headline from my razor was Hey, Buddy, You’re Bleeding,) It took a good many minutes for direct pressure to stop the bleeding; and, though I can’t say why, that finger-slicing incident led to my choosing this image of the author of “Under Milk Wood” and “Fern Hill.” I hope a reader can explain.
Unto each hand a little Trauma shall fall.
The philosopher figures everything out by going into a darkened room and thinking it over. The scientist figures everything out by thinking it over, guessing what is happening, testing the guess through experiment and observation, and altering or discarding the guess based on what was observed. Think this works with human relationships? Guess again!
Here is a real "One with Clay, Image and Text" chimera, which I'm posting celebratorily. Just a few hours ago I was accepted into The Village Gallery, a cooperative art gallery in the Village of Oak Creek, and walking distance from where I am living now! I'm really happy and excited about that! One thing that acceptance means is that I'll be making a lot more vessels...like these...
One with Clay, Image and Text 