Part of the miracle of life is that the tiniest intact artifact, one single living cell, contains the blueprints of the entire living thing. Part of the wonder of the life-death oscillation is that though dead a leaf may tell details great and small of the tree it fluttered from. Part of the joy of mathematical expression is found in the concept of Fractals. This is the remnant of the hundreds of thousands of words I need to say to do the subject justice. [pensive frown]
There are two related but distinct sets of words on this page. Here is the first:
a mutter comes from cosmic convolutions
a sigh may be celestial sometimes
for fists & guns a lack of quick solutions
ensures no lack of tears nor fire nor rhymes
Here is the second:
Lamps have shades & lifts have load
Images & rocks erode
Gophers dig & bunnies hop
Humans flash & strobe white/hot
Thus we kill & mourn the moth
When I was building the image I thought of my erstwhile Drawing & Composition sensei, Darlene Goto, whose two main sets of words/advice for her students were “Darker darks!” and “Use a full range of value.” Ms. Goto, thank you.
though the flight of a bird is trackless
the local turbulence tells volumes
as billions of molecules curlicue in queue
and wingflex wrestles in a full-nelson eddy
though the air is unstained we may imagine
imprint of alulae
flux of flutter
sinusoid swoop
pull dip pull dip pull
seek with unhuman acuity
parabolize trajectories onto prey
swim the firmament with a talon-clutched meal
Here’s one last spoonful of February.Thanks for “listen”ing!
Today I had the privilege of working with two of the true Sweethearts of the Village Gallery. One of them was Ricki Losee, as above. I hope to devote a future post to the other of them, but for today she will remain anonymous.
As for Ricki, her artwork in Prismacolor pencils is a celebration of vibrant, color-saturated life. She is at one with nature, especially with those creatures she deems Happy Things, which include birds and butterflies. Every nature drawing I have seen of hers has love, loyalty and creature-fellowship in it.
This page occurred mostly during a lull in the early shift, when Ricki asked me about my poetry and I decided to demo it for her, noting the happy fact that both of her names, Ricki and Losee, are five characters long. While I worked I talked to her about things important to her. Reverence for life is way up there, as is her love for her ornithology-inclined daughter, who is studying raptors, golden eagles in particular, and in pursuit of a Ph.D. So I have surrounded Ricki with not only a few sketchnails of her drawings, but also a golden eagle in full wingflex.
The words to the eponymous double acrostic are these:
Reverence for life ensures you have a tale to tell
If you see some Happy Things they just may say Hello
Cackles, birdsong, cacophonic squawks–and so it goes
Keeping conversation with a Condor? Do not grouse
It may turn to dietary issues–like a mouse
When is a Poem not a Poem? When it’s a Poem Made Into An Image. This poem-plus begins “over coffee this morning you basked in the undeniable fact” and it ends “superb weekend.” The rest is up to you do decipher, or not–enjoy the image alone if you wish. It all started by speculation on what the opposite of that “lost weekend” was. See THE LOST WEEKEND starring Ray Milland for more information.
Here is a shameful false start on the verses. The meter is fine, the rhyme is good, but each line is self-contained platitudinous nonsense that does not advance story, symbolism nor truth. I have stacks and stacks of such in my seven-year history of acrostic poetry.
It’s time for research: history of Latvia, significance of the ankh, anklet styles then and now. Stay tuned!
something needs to be said of barley
the grain
barley makes an ideal soup ingredient
it is a sponge for broth
and thus a gum and tongue pleaser
apparently it is used for beer as well
but more subtlely
the word
tolkien once named an innkeeper barliman butterbur
barley for short
and made him fat and chatty and slow of mind and pure of heart
fitting his name
which–hey–imagine alfalfiman aloebur
alfie for short
too too bristly
wrong
barley sounds like barney
and barely
and burly
father of barbie? sure
nice guy
the verse
be ye more like barley
kick it up a notch
make yourself unsnarly
butter up your scotch
The title for this series owes its colonscape to the Miller Analogies Test, Interested parties may quickly find a website that has the lowdown on the MAT, and free sample tests to boot, but all you need to know here is that ” : ” means ” is to ” and ” :: ” means ” as “.
:: you may recall, the double-acroticist looked at his (my) ANK LET beginning, and quickly epiphanied opportunity toappend aitch and tee, yielding ANKH LETT and enabling a DOUBLE Double Acrostic, which is not to be confused with a Quadruple Acrostic. The twin-twin challenges remaining were to 1) finish the acrostic a) so it would makes sense either way; and 2) do the illustration, which must b) incorporate the acrosticization in a single image. The above study is a possible serving suggestion, imagining a Lett woman (identified through her choice of having the flag of Latvia on her ankle) wearing an anklet that bears amongst its links an Ankh. What about LET? some astute observer may ask. Well, my Sweet Girfriend, who shall go named–Denise–LET me take a photo of her lower leg, and I based my drawing on the photo.
Two parts down, five to go. See you fine folks in a couple of days!
I keep getting possessed by a lovesickeningly romantic Sap who thinks life is hunky-dory as long as She Loves Me and, contrariwise, life is horrible if She Loves Me Not. Every so often I let him ride the Pencil and the Rhyme-Scheme-atron. This is one such time.
Here are the saccharine words:
Overtures at any other time may have been rash
Out of their contextual ensconcement–likely hash
If, however, frank assertions from a soulmate’s cache
Infiltrate a heart it may restore one’s hope, for sure
Cats who are enthusiastic tend to preen and purr
Catch a wholesome ecstasy: just meet a gaze and stir
The Sap wants me to point out the hidden message of the middle words: other contextual assertions restore enthusiastic ecstasy. Sap, it is done. Now please get lost until I need you again…
One with Clay, Image and Text 