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lovechild inkfield

October 19, 2014
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I once loved a girl, her skin it was bronze.
With the innocence of a lamb, she was gentle like a fawn.
I courted her proudly but now she is gone,
Gone as the season she’s taken.
Bob Dylan, “Ballad in Plain D”

When you see through love’s illusions, there lies the danger
And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger
While this loneliness seems to spring from your life
Like a fountain from a pool…
Jackson Browne, “Fountain of Sorrow”

It was a time I won’t forget
For the sorrow and regret
And the shape of a heart
And the shape of a heart
Jackson Browne, “In The Shape of a Heart”

The dance was good. Now let it end.
Roger Zelazny, “A Rose for Ecclesiastes”

I did love a girl. Her skin it was bronze, especially when she sunned. On June 14, 1971, I fell for her hard. In January of 1979 I left her. In August of that year we went to Colorado together for a week, but things were not the same between us and would never be so again. In midsummer 1990 she called me and asked me to come see her, and I did, and it provided some closure for me, and I hope for her. In March of 1993 I did a marathon in the city where she lived (and lives), staying as a guest in her house while she stayed with her husband-to-be. I haven’t seen her since. We used to call each other on our birthdays, but we haven’t done so this century.

There’s a lot left out of the above paragraph, just as there’s a lot of detail lost in the page I scanned and selectively deresolutioned. Restored, it reveals a portrait of her very young self and a double acrostic poem based on her name. She deserves her privacy, and I need a shorter leash on my spilling-my-guts tendency. But this blog, which will be the chief trace of myself left over after my death, is intended to be holographic, and I could not leave her out of it.

The Shaman Wakes At Dusk

October 19, 2014
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This courtly gentleman lives where I work. He is shamanistic, a lover of music from Mozart to David Gates’s Bread, a lover of dancing, of our Verde Valley, and of his fellow human beings. There is something about the tipping of day toward night that wakes him from a nap. There is something about the joy he derives from everyday life that brings an easy smile to his face, and then the faces of the people he talks to.

I’m glad to know him, and I wish the Earth had more of him.

Here are the words to the acrostic of his name:

Can o p t i m i s m come to be
Around when some unhappily
Reflect on spires that do not gleam
Lost love, lost chances, darkened theme?
Of course! Just find a friend who’s fair
Shake Shakespeare and confound Flaubert

Shakespeare wrote HAMLET and KING LEAR and MACBETH and ROMEO AND JULIET and TITUS ANDRONICUS (“probably in collaboration with George Peele,” says Wikipedia) and OTHELLO and other awfulness-containing tragedies. Flaubert is chiefly known for MADAME BOVARY.

To Noah Webster, Socorro Solis Olsen, and My PACpals

October 18, 2014
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Today my good friend and Leader of the Facebook Poet Pack, Socorro Olsen, clued me in on an article about words Noah Webster had in his pioneering Dictionary. The article had a word for every letter in the alphabet, and also mentioned his popularization of Americanisms such as squash, skunk, hickory, chowder and applesauce. I had a great deal of fun getting familiar with the words and their meanings by writing this poem with at least one of the words in each line. NOTE: “PACpals” refers to the members of the Facebook poetry group Poets All Call, which Socorro created and in which I enthusiastically have participated for years.

To Noah Webster, Socorro Solis Olsen, and My PACpals

Uptrain us, please, O Webster, N,
We Yoke-mates need our fun.
To bloom and Vernate well and then
Trill Zuffalo and pun.
Though Xerophagy leaves us dry
And makes us Maffle oddly,
An Ear-erecting noise awry
Makes Kissing-crust more godly.
And we may Sheep-bite from your words
Though at first Tardigradous,
No Rakeshames, we, just avid nerds
Whose Babblement’s unmade us.
Such Hugger-Mugger came before,
And now we, After-wise,
Won’t Daggle-tail the couch or floor
With Packthread o’er our eyes.
We may choose to Obambulate
To gain Longiquity
Nuncupatory deals relate
To Wranglesome decree.
Illaqueation sets the trap;
A Quadrin we don’t need,
Our Cycopede will cut the crap
For Fopdoodle to cede.
No dummy, no Gastriloquist,
Just ham on wry Jackpudding,
We’ll Squash the Applesauce, then twist
The Skunk tail, would-should-coulding.

L’Envoi

Old Hickory took a powder.
Hey, buddy–pass the Chowder!

Picasso: “Great artists steal.” So I…

September 30, 2014
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…stole. A copy of Smithsonian Magazine was open to an ad for the DVD and Blu-Ray editions of Ken Burns’s THE ROOSEVELTS. The cover of the items for sale was photo-based but with an anachronistic twist. I initially wanted to do some portrait practice on Franklin, but I ended up doing them all, pencil-reporting and preserving (stealing) the positioning and the anachronism. I did try to add a little more inner beauty to Eleanor, a little more wide-eyed goodtobehere to Franklin, and a little more walrus to Theodore.

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I also stole the design of the cover of a memo book produced by Mead Products, LLC, but only to the end of getting some black background, the amazing letter string “memo,” about which more later, and the occlusion of “Mead” so that it might also say something else, like “Meanderlust” or “Meant Not To Be.” Art critics love stuff like that, based on historical evidence, but, honest, folks, I did it because it was the right thing to do!

As to “memo,” not only does it start such magical words as Memorial and Memoirist, it also splits into “me mo,” which is falseghetto for “I want more.”

I don’t think there’s a very high probability that I’ve created a great work of art with this, but I hope it and this annotation give satisfation as something more than portraiture exercise. I wanted to illustrate through caricatured example that what we think of as ART requires more than what the artist does on paper or canvas or stone or sheetmetal; it also requires the thoughts and opinions of others in the Art Business.

For the record, I don’t think stealing makes me a Great Artist. Hard work, skewed thoughtlines, and perseverance MAY do that. It is for others to judge my worth.

Lastly, I’ll steal a terrific seven words from Allen Ginsberg:

“I forbid you not to touch me.”

The Pun Exchange, Featuring Shawn L. Bird

June 9, 2014
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Shawn L. Bird is a poet, a novelist, and an educator. Here is my artist’s conception of her, but I do not do her justice, and I hope you visit her site to find that that is true.

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Recently Shawn posted an “Unfinished Canadian Joke” about a beaver crossing the road, thus:

On the side of the highway:

a body of thick fur and flat leathery tail.

Why did the beaver cross the road?

I guess we’ll never know.

I commented, thus:

Because with Beavers it’s one dam thing after another.

She replied, thus:

You should lodge a complaint.

And from then on it went like this:

Gary: I tried, but my tail fell flat.
Shawn: Keep gnawing at it, and I’m sure it’ll work out.
Gary: Is that incisor information?
Shawn: Dam right! Stick to it!
Gary: Would that I could, but I can’t afford to be chewsy. [sad face]
Shawn: Yes, you have to beavery careful…
Gary: I’ll bite–why?
Shawn: It wood be quite a tail to explain.
Gary: That’s fine, as long as it’s not pulp fiction and I can sink my teeth into it.
Shawn: O no, it’s tree-mendous.
Gary: Ah, sweet Miss Tree of Life. No wonder you’re so poplar. And why aren’t I? Elmentary, my dear Watson…
Shawn: Well now we’re branching out, aren’t we?
Gary: I beleaf so.
Shawn: I willow you for this!
Gary: Weep not, O Poet. I know payback’s a beech.

Shawn, in her e-mail kindly granting permission to make a post of this, says, “I’m still pondering my rebuttal! You may have won the pun-off! [winky face]”  But rebuttal or no, she is the winner: She inspired, she generously gave of her time and wit, and she gave as good or better than she got. She proves that the much-maligned Pun has layers of value, as a vehicle for playfulness, as a way of geometrically expanding reality, and as an engagement of mind that helps stave off mind-loss. Life handled lightly from time to time is more enjoyable, and this is one way to enjoy it. Thank you, Shawn!

Why Humphrey Bogart Morphed Into Mark Hamill

June 1, 2014
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He did it for the sake of “Further Adventures of Denise and Gary,” thus:

Further Adventures of Denise and Gary: Humphrey Skywalker & Co.

DENISE and GARY are having breakfast at Annie’s, DENISE with a “Vegetarian Scramble” and GARY with a “Mingus Man Breakfast,” ordered on the pretext that May would be the last day for such dietary improprieties. Suddenly GARY gets a mischievous look on his face.

GARY: What did Humphrey Bogart say after he changed to Mark Hamill?
DENISE: I don’t know, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.
GARY: Here’s Luke-ing at you, kid.

DENISE continues to eat. It is as if nothing were said.

GARY: Ah, cmon. [pouts]
DENISE: You’ll be OK in a couple of days.
GARY: Isn’t it good to have an Inner Child? [sways and mugs goofily]
DENISE: Sometimes it’s better to have an Outer Adult.

[GARY stops swaying; there is an awkward pause]

DENISE: You HAVE made me chuckle more than once, though.
GARY: Yeah?
DENISE: Yes. [smiles] Twice. [pats GARY’s hand]

(loosely based on reality)

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They Happened Last Night

May 30, 2014
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Here’s a meld of two sketches I made last night, doing my Night Clerk duty of staying awake and alert, routine tasks to that point finished. There’s a symbol that seems a bit derivative of the new Superman chest adornment and there’s a nine-minute flash portraiture foray that seems a bit off, Wallace-Shawn-wise. Try, try again!