Calligraphy of rain,
Gentle messages stolen from a cloud,
A mother sacrificing her life
For future generations of mothers.
Spilling overtures of relief go door to door
To every blade of wheat.
Only the scavengers will go hungry this year
Not a Painter
I use paint on canvas (and other bases) but I am not a painter. You may think this comes down to talent. I may or may not agree.
The truth is, I am not a painter because I don’t make paintings. I don’t believe I have ever made something that I would want to sell or hang on the wall. That’s not the goal. What I want is an image. I love the painting, but I don’t feel fulfilled until I get a really good photograph of what I made. Then I throw the painting, or rather thing covered in paint, in the trash.
If I ever were to even attempt to sell my better, more successful work, I wouldn’t sell the thing with paint on it. I would sell the photograph.
Maybe one day I will do that. I will go on Etsy or one of those photo selling websites, and I will attempt to sell my art that way.
I am getting into some exciting new stuff soon. I bought a book about abstract painting with mixed media collage, and I am stoked. So much to learn, so many materials to try. Meanwhile, I am making digital art too as a sort of journal. Sometimes I might pair the images with words, with verbed and nouned feelings.
Experimenting With Novellettes
Recently I ordered some experimental novels I found in articles online. I believe I wrote awhile back about dabbling in fiction.
I dropped that for awhile. Now I am back. In desperate need of a sense of structure, I wanted new novels to read. However, I don’t want to write a regular sort of novel. As a poem writer, I want to break things down. I also want a shorter story. Can a story with no plot be good? Can the color orange be my protagonist? Can I structure my book as a series of ekphrastic poems? What does it mean to structure a story as a scrapbook? Can I include footnotes, to-do notes, and playlists?
I want to find out. I have a lot to learn. I am a voracious reader, but this is stuff I haven’t really touched. It is time to leave the familiar terrains of my mind and map a new world.
The Last Painting
Labored seeing –
The artist as his canvas drifts away.
The IV hums a little.
They only let him squeeze
The morphine button every five minutes.
4 out of every 5 minutes
Is a dog gnawing on his body.
Please…
He begs…
One more painting and I will go
Without complaint.
Less of You
The advertisement promised diligent bread.
The sort of thing that will eat for you
While you bask prideful in a fashionable,
Contemporary hunger.
The world loves you as it loves itself.
That’s why it wants less of you, Dear.
Of course.
Don’t doubt.
Pout.
There is a new job coming,
To be done by someone else.
HDR
The Atmosphere
Light and Heat
What does the light ray feel
Falling to her death on
My skin?
When the end is near
She does not perceive darkness
Where she is, the dark is not.
When she is gone
She is cancerous trash
The heat is her child
And will move on
To other mothers
Maybe she feels what I do
When I close my eyes
Wilted.
Hell Is
It rains on desert,
Granola,
Landsscape.
The jagged rocks crusted
With love letters to Dante.
He had the levels of hell all wrong.
There is so much dancing,
But the music is atonal,
And pestilence bores holes through
The dancers’ feet.
Hell is a life if obligator dancing.
Beer
Beaches of lime and slow.
We are home to the most unpopular beer.
I have a lot to drink here
but eat slowly.
Threatening texture
Physical.
