evanescence | One with Clay, Image and Text

knockoff

reaching down for my nightstand sockdrawer i clumsily elbowed a small vessel I’d made years ago over the edge of the nightstand

and it fell and being brittle shattered

but though it will no longer serve to hold keys or coins I as a potter am oddly grateful to get a look at the shattered vessel wall and note with satisfaction if not smugness that the vessel’s wall is both thin and even

and i have many vessels and the ability to make more and so the loss is minimal and perhaps not even a loss but an opportunity to pair this brokenness with an undamaged comrade so that they represent two states of being

I’ve placed them on a sheet from a black-paper sketchpad that with its series of rectangular holes resembling film sprockets symbolizes how cinematic the conversion of a vessel from whole to shards may be

and the title is that fine French phrase “c’est la vie” which translates to “this is life”

This post is inspired by Stephen Bishop’s song “On and On,” taking its title from one of its lyrics. Two other lyrical sections of the song are also quoted.

The song has stuck in my head for nearly forty years; I like it but it haunts me. I like the rarity of a man singing about a man crying who is not the man himself. I also like its singer/songwriter, Stephen Bishop, who was billed “Cool Guy With Guitar” in the landmark comedy ANIMAL HOUSE. He was the one whose guitar was smashed to pieces by John Belushi’s Bluto, who handed the severed neck back to him with a sincere but I-had-to “Sorry.”

Toss Up My Heart words:

Though they’ll have Tito Puente there’ll be an empty seat at Hialeah
Of the 600 outmunitioned almost all died in Crimea
Such odd haphazard history may have you ask What For
Seek ye serendipity becomes my soul’s retort

See Where It Lands words:

Swollen willows weep–it’s offal
Section Eights have FILLED Golgotha
Every time stuff hits the fan
Each soul tries to understand
Evanescence–drifting sands

—One with Clay, Image and Text

a showcase of the writings and art works of Gary W. Bowers

Archive

Tag Archives: evanescence

knockoff

“Toss Up My Heart & See Where It Lands”