a song of departure
the staff eased
his passing with
gentle low voices
and therethere smiles. He emerged
from coma briefly and he & his wife
confessed & forgave. She held
his hand as he delicately slowed to a stop.
Eighteen years ago today, airplanes were weaponized by terrorists in an attack on my country, and the course of our history veered. Living in that history has been to some extent a nightmare. And so the metaphor that occurred to me is a crater formed by the act of an imp, a minion of Evil Incarnate: Imp Act Crater.
I want to do a much more polished and wordsmithed version of the page above, so I pseudo-rubber-stamped it “DRAFT.” (I hope I will find, acquire or make a real DRAFT rubber stamp soon; I can use it!) Meanwhile there is this.
Imp Act Crater (DRAFT)
It’s stake time now for Joan of Arc
Moloch’s malarkey leaves a scar
Pandemics are a panacea
As coup d’etat meets death by fiat
Catastrophe by rock & flare
Takes precedence o’er thought & prayer
This post owes its existence to my friend of many years, designer Terry Irwin. She pointed her Facebook readers to an article in The Nation about Wendell Berry, perhaps the closest thing to a latter-day Thoreau that these times have produced. The article included the phrase “extractive capitalism,” which I have used as the acrostic.
What is Extractive Capitalism? It is exploitation without reciprocity. It is taking advantage and not giving back. Clearcutting and fracking and unsafe offshore drilling are examples, but the practice does not limit itself to Earthly riches: during the housing crisis in the late 2000s, Extractive Capitalism extracted dollars from middle-classers and gave it to banking executives and stockbrokers.
Wendell Berry’s wisdom may be found in this passage from the article: “The time is past when it was enough merely to elect our officials,” [Berry] argued in 1972 concerning the fight against strip mining. “We will have to elect them and then go and watch them and keep our hands on them, the way the coal companies do.”
Another valuable phrase in the article sums this wisdom up: “Participatory democracy.”
In my country the concept of Socialism is being demonized by the current administration. It is painted as Big Government taking and doling out, with hordes of parasites with their hands out. But true, RESPONSIBLE Socialism, where each individual seeks the best fit of meaningful endeavor and fair exchange as a participating member of the state, will be what saves us from climate change, corruption and waste, I think.
Here is my poem, with the acrostic aspect disregarded for clarity, and a word or two changed because of the freedom from stricture:
Extractive Capitalism
ENGULF! Be meteoric
Extend hegemony
A trawler-drag historic
Uproots anemone
I acey-deucey dare ya
It cash-enriches molders
A test run of malaria
Will Instashare the holders
I venture we’ll do Chasms
Enable Cash Orgasms
Last night I had a sensation in my chest that was identical to one that sent me to the Emergency Room a couple of years back. Then as (most likely) now, electrocardiogram was normal. Nevertheless, they referred me to a cardiologist, who recommended a CT scan with contrast, which the insurance company denied, and we appealed to no avail, so they gave me a “nuclear stress test” instead, which disclosed that my heart’s “profusion”–blood-pumping action–was on the high end of the Normal range, and so they pronounced me Normal. That didn’t reassure me any too much, because “normal” people with a history of cardiac disease in their families (my dad died in 1983 at the age of 49 from “massive myocardial infarction”) are walking time bombs, despite all efforts at weight control (I’m a whopping 218 pounds now, or, to be euphemistic, “less than a hundred kilos”) and avoidance of contraindicated activity such as smoking (I don’t smoke, but sometimes succumb to the Gamblin’ Fool urge, and hang out in one of the local casinos, where smoking is not only permitted, but with the ubiquitous ashtrays, encouraged) and healthy diet (I am eating more yogurt and using more olive oil lately). So every day is a blessing, and every sign that all will be taken from me in a non-heartbeat is a curse. And last night I was Accursed.
What to do? Distraction to the rescue! I set myself a challenge at the stroke of 10:15: go from Blank Card to Completed Acrostic Poem with Image as FAST AS POSSIBLE. And when I finished, including signature and date, I looked at my watch and it said 10:35. And my chest had quieted down.
The above card, therefore, and to be the Drama Queen I undeniably am, May Well Have Saved My Life. That’s my Spin and I’m sticking to it.
And–the poetry is pretty darn good for so few words, and the image illustrates the poem serviceably, if not all that eye-pleasingly. Two people, one a stereotypical Busty Blonde and the other a stereotypical Busty-Blonde-Ogler, are both wearing X-Ray Spex, a novelty item which through light diffraction gives the illusion that the viewer can see through things, especially clothing. Both are dismayed that their Spex do not actually let them see through things, and they feel as if they have been suckered. Meanwhile tanks (and I had to rely on my memory as a 6th-grader sketching a tank from a big, thick book entitled Weapons, which I had to get special permission from Mrs. Bailey to check out) rumble in the background.
It’s a fairly nifty synopsis of the toxic absurdity that passes for Current Events today, what with all the saber-rattling and distraction and fakeness and accusation of fakeness–almost Biblical in the “wars, and rumors of wars” aspect–whoops, Friends, that’s the Drama Queen talking again…
…or is it? Faced with a personal crisis, my “distraction” seems to have been a focus on a more dire, impersonal, global crisis. I may be a Drama Queen, but the Bureau of Atomic Scientists DID quite recently move the minute hand of the “Doomsday Clock” one minute closer to midnight.
“Courage is our greatest present need,” my friends.
Next Echo
Now a ROBIN may be Thicke
Entertain with Vid or Pic
X-RAY SPEX were full of Pooh
Tanks & Silicone are too
aha (ku)
fourteen hundred posts
a Quest that has rendered a
barely-scratched surface
Something happened at work that was so delightful it must be recorded, yet professionalism demands that I walk a tightrope of discretion. So this account will contain Truth, but not the Whole truth. As for “Nothing but the Truth,” my honesty is up to that, but my spotty specific-memory isn’t, so some of this will be inexact.
Three exuberant ladies stepped up to the host stand. We will call them 4, 5 and 6, based on the number of letters in their first names. One of them, either 4 or 5, said that they had been here before, and they were back because they had gotten crushes on me from last time, because I’d given them a poem. (I sometimes offer a poem or a joke for parties waiting for tables, by way of distraction through light entertainment.) I smiled and seated them at one of the most popular tables, a four-top with phone-charging capability and plenty of elbow room.
While I continued hosting, I started composing a limerick. No one watching me work would have suspected I was multitasking, nor was I shirking: I was getting people seated and bussing tables without missing a beat. But at a lull I passed the ladies’ table and caught an eye. “Hey, I have a limerick for you, [4],” I told her and them.
“Oh, let’s hear it!”
“There once was a lady named [4]
Who made her regard for me plain
As she dined in plain view
Of her cast and her crew
She was gracious and kind, in the main.”
Then I quickly said, “GEEZ, that’s lame,” and at that they laughed.
More tables, more diners, then a lull. I wandered by the fateful table. “Got one for [5].” “Good!”
“A fine-dining person named [5]
Is mostly a dignified lady,
She sings like a bird,
And does fine Spoken Word,
But she discoes like it’s 1980.”
I do not exaggerate when I describe their response as a Burst of Laughter. They had been polite the last time, but at most mildly amused. I think I made up for it with this one.
But now I had a problem. The third member of the trio had a brain-buster of a name to come up with two limerick-rhyme words for. I could cheat and not end the line with her name, but a) cheating b) inconsistent with the other two c) how fine it would be to MEET that challenge. As I took dishes to the Dish Pit I got Rhymeword #1. As I seated a party of six I got Rhymeword #2. As the ladies waited for their bill to be generated by the server I approached their table.
“Well, I didn’t want [6] to feel left out…”
They beamed.
“I know of a lass named [6].
Don’t EVER suggest she’s a Playa,
For at that very notion
She’ll rage like the ocean,
And you’d better BACK OFF–or she’ll Slay ya.”
And by golly, the response at the last was best of all, with not only hearty laughter but NODS–I inferred that I had stumbled on some Truth.
Most important for me was feeling that I had turned my gratitude for being the reason for their return to Matt’s into a reward in the form of…more Poetry. I walked on air all the rest of my shift.
And I hope they’ll be back. They are The Three Graces to me. My little card above would fully reveal my regard for them, if all the words could be read.
About fifty years ago I read Cool Hand Luke by Donn Pearce. I was a teenager in Glendale, Arizona. I may have been trying out for the track team at the time. (Alas, I had no talent, but they let me “compete” anyway.) A phrase from that fine, gut-slamming book stuck in my head from that time to this, and I invoke it every time I try to turn over a new leaf and be healthy.
Luke had made a bet that he could eat fifty eggs. Sometime between the time he made that bet and he (spoiler alert) won the bet, he drank water when everyone thought he was going to do something else, specifically vomit. “Instead he drank water…” So when I’m tempted to eat a bag of cookies or a Philly Cheesesteak, I stave off temptation by being, briefly, Cool Hand Luke himself, and have some water instead.
The acrosticist’s problem, though, is that “instead” has seven letters, as does “hedrank”, but “water” has only five. So to fulfill an outlandish acrostic requirement my drinker is drinking “whatter.” I was forced to conceive a backstory about a sports drink called “Whatter You Waiting For?” rich in electrolytes and laced with a psychotropic substance that enables focus and intensity.
instead he drank whatter
it pays to hydrate–ask athletic people in the know
needs include an anaesthetic dream of sandra oh
suck down that nutriented drink that you may be grade a
then find a righteous probiotic product like yoplait
ecclesiastes says to eat and drink as if au fait
and merriment is on the menu lest the tempers flare
delicious drink and kitchen sink make such a lovely pair
Apologies to Yoplait and to Sandra Oh. I am a big fan of both but consulted neither. Yoplait helped restore my digestic tract’s “good bacteria” after I was bombed with antibiotics. Sandra Oh was a huge reason I got such a kick out of the movie Sideways. Also she had a minor but unforgettable role in the pornstar-funeral episode of Six Feet Under. She is gifted indeed. –So my hope is that both parties consider my reference to them respectful and admiring. (Realistically, though, this post will overwhelmingly likely be unnoticed by both.)
This was hard enough to do in itself, but there is more rough road to bump over, because this is just one acrostic, yet the acrostic is “Catastrophic Cat Acrostics”–plural. So at least one more is forthcoming.
The other issue is “Catastrophic.” Where is the catastrophe? Well, the default will be that Cats have a reputation for living on the edge They are rumored to require nine lives because of their endangering curiosity. In this version of the poem, the third line reads “Tomcats who leap off a roof so often land intact.” But in an early draft the line read “Toss Tomcats off a roof and they so often land intact.” Catastrophic scenario, but what a horrible thing to do!
CATastrophic CAT acrostics #1
Collectors know that Kitties go beyond mere bric-a-brac • And soothsayers regard the Black-Furred key to the Arcana • Tomcats who leap off a roof so often land intact • And Prowling after Plummeting becomes a tom’s Nirvana • Successful integration of a cat in story’s arc • Takes understanding of the Cat as Empress/Angel/Boor • Rejuvenator/Savior yet a l o o f when you embark–O • Oui is Yes & Non is No & Always is Toujours • Peut-être is Perhaps and fot Eat Well Bon Appetît • Here almost endeth our leçon for Boredom is Ennui • It suits a Cat as does most French for there Cats are très chic • Comprenez-vous Lautrec, Toulouse un chat avec précis
Another three arguments for the Catastrophe of this acrostic is the degenerative use of the French language, the clumsy sometimes-iambic-sometimes-trochaic septameter, and the stifling crowdedness of the text. As to the first, French is useful when an endword must end on a certain letter AND rhyme.
The good news is the next one can’t help but be better.
Modern music of the Hip-Hop variety will often see one artist enhancing another, as for instance “Eminem feat. Rihanna.” “Feat.” is of course short for Featuring. Since this page is one acrostic enhanced by another, and all the acrostic words rhyme with “feat.”, it was irresistible to use “feat.” in my title. There’s also the tendency in poetry events to “feature” one or more poets, with or without “open mic,” which is of course short for “open microphone,” though often there isn’t a microphone.
The stereotype of Canadian speech is to end a sentence with “eh.” Comic book legend John Byrne, himself a Canadian, once quoted another Canadian who scorned that stereotype, but he said, “We don’t talk that way, eh.” Canadians also have a perhaps deserved reputation for being quite nice and quite polite.
There is a Canadian whiskey called Fireball, laced with cinnamon and like the alcoholic version of Red Hots, a hard candy popular when I was growing up. So a subfeature of this page might be called “heat neat feat. Fireball.” When a drink is ordered “neat” it means don’t add ice nor water nor a mixer to it.
“Cafe au lait” is French for “coffee enhanced with milk.” On the page I made circumflexes and accent marks, but writing in English we often do without. “Santa Fe” is sometimes written with an accent mark over the e–Aldous Huxley did so in Brave New World–but overwhelmingly its written form dispenses with the accent mark. It would have stuck out like a sore thumb on the acrostic.
The Seine is a river running through Paris, France. Once upon a time “the Left Bank” referred to creative types, because they tended to congregate on the left bank of the Seine.
A lot of people from France ended up in Canada. There is a ghost of a chance that “eh” is a direct descendant of “n’est-ce pas?”–French for “Is this not so?”
.
neat heat
nylon in Toronto, eh
eagle feathered Santa Fe
ash on 56th and Shea
time for some cafe au lait
heat neat
h i j k l m n
eventide upon the Seine
a b c d c b a
taken with cafe au lait
Chaos Floss
Cameled Millie tends to scoff
Heavily into felafel
And her Office Box is boffo
Owing to her mishegoss
She’s the undisputed Boss
Doing a Chaos-themed work is like having a Get Out of Jail Free card. Any issue the viewer might have may be dismissed or resolved with “Well, it’s not SUPPOSED to make sense/be coherent/be consistent/be a well-balanced composition/rhyme perfectly/scan perfectly. It is a demonstration of Chaos, which is Randomness, or Disorder.”
But I don’t want nor need a Get Out of Jail Free card. Just as James Joyce cheerfully explained any passage of his landmark yet extremely dense Magnum Opus, Finnegans Wake, so too I am eager to demonstrate that there is a method to my chaos.
The title is “Chaos Floss.” What does that mean? It might mean Random Inconsequence, and I think it does, a bit, in this case. At left is a seeming agitated figure holding his head. He appears to be enclosed in an oval or sphere but is in fact enclosed in the negative space created by the two leftmost panels of a four-panel sequence. There are spheres, increasingly small, upward and to the right, which when viewed with the negative space of the figure’s enclosure might be remindful of a series of photos of a planet in orbital motion. The gravitational pull creating the orbit appears to be the “2019” of the signature/date slugline. Did the artist do that on purpose? Does it matter? Does it work with the rest of the page? (Note from the artist: I THINK it does, just as the rug in Jeffrey Lebowski’s front room “really tied the room together,” but I am not the best judge, being partial to my own efforts. YOU are the best judge.)
“Chaos Floss” may also mean the equivalent of Dental Floss, which is a stringlike product intended to improve dentition by extricating unwanted material from the gums and teeth. Chaos Floss in that case would be some means of demystifying the apparently chaotic and revealing the underlying order and-or purpose of the subject at hand.
In the second panel, there’s a guy in a chair, seeming to reach up to touch the underjaw of a giant bird. If you do an Internet search on “Jack Kirby Metron,” you’ll find a similar character, but one a great deal more sophisticated. Metron pops in and out of places using his dimensionally-transportive chair, and he is so hungry for knowledge that Orion of New Genesis claimed that he would “sell the universe into slavery” to get some. The bird I have drawn, that this Bizarro-Metron is reaching for, greatly resembles a creation of mine that I called “The Tutti-Frutti Bird of Benign Insanity.” So in my own private universe, this panel symbolizes the desirability of getting in touch with Benign Insanity. Even the most avid student of my oeuvre (and there are none such that I know of, avid or otherwise) would be hard put to have interpreted that panel without the help that I have just provided.
But I am not trying to be obscure. I would not expect anybody to struggle with the meaning of my image. I hope that, stripped of whatever meaning there may be, my images are visually engaging, and might lend themselves to storytelling that the viewer her/himself may provide. I try to make them so.
Friends, I could go on and on, but it is time, or past time, to wrap up. The poem has a bad and possibly meaningless pun in it, “Cameled Millie” (chamomile), and a lot of f-sounds and s-sounds and soft-o sounds. (“Asinine Alliteration and Upped Assonance?” he asked playfully, vulgarly.) The dark patterned bananas are a visual pun on “going bananas,” which is 1970s American slang for acting crazy. Even more than Chaos, Craziness seems to be the theme of this page. I trust and hope that it is benign craziness.
I would love comments and questions, as always, Friends. Thank you for your attention!
One with Clay, Image and Text 