Les Montres Molles, 1968. (His Last Painting.)
We met at the edge of time. His talents curled
off his lips melting drops of water, shadowing
reflections of his dead brother. Wild-eyed,
he explained his theories of pocket watches
and expanding landscapes, as if I understood
their luxuries.
He was 84 as I watched his last breath
twister up into the sky, drawing shattered
pieces of him and his father's relationship.
Unforgiving, he decayed, a fly ate away time
that his father never cared for. A lonely moth he sat
edging away from his art.
I really enjoy the imagery in your poem. “talents curling off lips” and ‘his last breath twister[ing] up into the sky”. You’re using circular imagery, which I think matches perfect with the idea of time and watches. GREAT. It seems to me like you’re conveying a little bit of elegance to a haphazard, seemingly hopeless, life history to this. I don’t think it’s a brain fart! I think it just needs to be expanded. For instance, even though you only mentioned this man’s brother once, you it seems to be what his suffering is encompassing. Maybe give a little bit of a backstory on his brother?
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Improv-ing -- Week 9
I'm going to improv Green pants by Sttephen Grahm Jones:
We met sometime in October a few years back at a mutual friends apartment over some under-aged drinks and great conversation and we met for coffee a week later.
I scared you, and you left quickly.
You bought some pot.
Numb so your feelings.
Those butterflies in your stomach floated away with the cloud of marijuana smoke.
You called me a few days later because the smell of curiosity doesn’t leave your close as fast as the smell of ganja.
We had coffee, shared laughs, and had great conversation for two weeks straight then we were official for a year then the butterflies came back like locusts because you meant everything you said and didn’t mean to.
You bought some pot.
Numbed your feelings.
The smoke and the butterflies left out the window.
This time the fabric was cleaned of the fumes and replaced with a new girl that wears cheap perfume and makes you numb without the pot.
We met sometime in October a few years back at a mutual friends apartment over some under-aged drinks and great conversation and we met for coffee a week later.
I scared you, and you left quickly.
You bought some pot.
Numb so your feelings.
Those butterflies in your stomach floated away with the cloud of marijuana smoke.
You called me a few days later because the smell of curiosity doesn’t leave your close as fast as the smell of ganja.
We had coffee, shared laughs, and had great conversation for two weeks straight then we were official for a year then the butterflies came back like locusts because you meant everything you said and didn’t mean to.
You bought some pot.
Numbed your feelings.
The smoke and the butterflies left out the window.
This time the fabric was cleaned of the fumes and replaced with a new girl that wears cheap perfume and makes you numb without the pot.
Sign inventory -- week 9
Green Pants by Stephen Grahm Jones
I noticed that in this poem Jones used block poetry in most of his poem. The first 'stanza' or 'paragraph' is just one big sentence describing a sequence of events squished together. It's a reflection of how quick that event happened. I think it's intersting how he depected the daze of events in one sentence/block, and the rest of them poem slows down and uses more puncuation once they get to the hospital.
I noticed that in this poem Jones used block poetry in most of his poem. The first 'stanza' or 'paragraph' is just one big sentence describing a sequence of events squished together. It's a reflection of how quick that event happened. I think it's intersting how he depected the daze of events in one sentence/block, and the rest of them poem slows down and uses more puncuation once they get to the hospital.
Calisthenics -- Week 9
i finally found a way to work in the suggestion that Davidson and Ericka made about finding a way to work crocheting terminology into a poem. :]
Choose your color and begin with a slipknot.
Chain three.
Yarn over.
Draw loop through three.
It starts at the crown of your head
For a child, that is the fontanel.
Still open and ready to absorb the myths of heroes
Preserved in the pith that lay between unsoiled ears.
Never lose your child-like innocence.
That’s why new borns are given crocheted hats.
Hats made with love by hand.
Series of knots placed snug
over a child’s head ready to capture innocence.
Later placed in the wooden chest
at the foot of their bed and locked away like treasure.
There are dreams embedded in each half double crochet and chain
Locking each crumbled dream away
like crumbs of Gerber crackers stuck in the cracks of the high chair.
But those are scrubbed away.
Choose your color and begin with a slipknot.
Chain three.
Yarn over.
Draw loop through three.
It starts at the crown of your head
For a child, that is the fontanel.
Still open and ready to absorb the myths of heroes
Preserved in the pith that lay between unsoiled ears.
Never lose your child-like innocence.
That’s why new borns are given crocheted hats.
Hats made with love by hand.
Series of knots placed snug
over a child’s head ready to capture innocence.
Later placed in the wooden chest
at the foot of their bed and locked away like treasure.
There are dreams embedded in each half double crochet and chain
Locking each crumbled dream away
like crumbs of Gerber crackers stuck in the cracks of the high chair.
But those are scrubbed away.
free entry 2 -- week 9
My dreads started as babies.
Softly coiled by palm rolling.
Row crops nested on my crown.
Wash them often.
Keep the roots in check with rubber bands.
Tied neatly with a bandana at night so they’re easy
to deal with in the morning.
The teenage stage comes five months later.
Rubber bands are cut. They’re wild fuzzy.
They do what they want.
Too small to tie into a pony tail, too wild
and haphazard to keep down.
They’re fuzzy, and the roots didn’t stay kept,
so they were latch hooked.
Chain three.
Double crochet.
Fourteen months pass and they’re now mature.
Follicles grow like weeds pushing threads
of protein that weave and felted.
The rope that shapes my face.
Four years of stories lie in the pith of all ninety-three.
Softly coiled by palm rolling.
Row crops nested on my crown.
Wash them often.
Keep the roots in check with rubber bands.
Tied neatly with a bandana at night so they’re easy
to deal with in the morning.
The teenage stage comes five months later.
Rubber bands are cut. They’re wild fuzzy.
They do what they want.
Too small to tie into a pony tail, too wild
and haphazard to keep down.
They’re fuzzy, and the roots didn’t stay kept,
so they were latch hooked.
Chain three.
Double crochet.
Fourteen months pass and they’re now mature.
Follicles grow like weeds pushing threads
of protein that weave and felted.
The rope that shapes my face.
Four years of stories lie in the pith of all ninety-three.
junkyard -- week 9
"... because he likes broads with thick brains"
-- A line form a song by Common that i modified.
"On monday mornings i pass by the church as the sound of their bells stretch and widen like elastic chasing my car and winding as the distance grows between my car and the holy hall."
-- random line i came up with. i pass through the square in the mornigs and the church bells usually go off on my way to class. It sounds so creepy when i'm in motion away from the church and i wanted to try to describe how it sounded
"stratus clouds patched together creating a quilt that lay snug over the land. the sun blinks through the seams as the wind shakes the rain onto the earth"
--i took a few ideas from spencer's poem and tried to make them my own. Thanks Spencer!
" Going to the square at night on the weekends is like watching live discovery channel. Everyone is doing their mating dances and mating calls."
-- me
-- A line form a song by Common that i modified.
"On monday mornings i pass by the church as the sound of their bells stretch and widen like elastic chasing my car and winding as the distance grows between my car and the holy hall."
-- random line i came up with. i pass through the square in the mornigs and the church bells usually go off on my way to class. It sounds so creepy when i'm in motion away from the church and i wanted to try to describe how it sounded
"stratus clouds patched together creating a quilt that lay snug over the land. the sun blinks through the seams as the wind shakes the rain onto the earth"
--i took a few ideas from spencer's poem and tried to make them my own. Thanks Spencer!
" Going to the square at night on the weekends is like watching live discovery channel. Everyone is doing their mating dances and mating calls."
-- me
free entery week 9
Enveloped perspective that assumes the position
of power that is colored plain and white,
secured by nine oval buttons that mimic pearls
that carefully hide you from women with thick
brains.
and the potential energy stored in bodily systems that happen
above the neck
to be something that hovers above.
Collar, detachable and black ties are cobra coiled around your neck
tightened by inflation turning your face green
while your head balloons in control
while words are whoopi-cusioned out of your mouth
splattered onto eggshell white walls.
A fertile place for secrets.
But when you were young all you wanted was to change the world and painted pictures of circles with green, blue and brown swirls.
of power that is colored plain and white,
secured by nine oval buttons that mimic pearls
that carefully hide you from women with thick
brains.
and the potential energy stored in bodily systems that happen
above the neck
to be something that hovers above.
Collar, detachable and black ties are cobra coiled around your neck
tightened by inflation turning your face green
while your head balloons in control
while words are whoopi-cusioned out of your mouth
splattered onto eggshell white walls.
A fertile place for secrets.
But when you were young all you wanted was to change the world and painted pictures of circles with green, blue and brown swirls.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Improv-ing -- Week 8
I'm going to try to improv Beginnings by James Wright
Coddled by the heat rising my shirt.
Yellow skin teased by the heat rising from
cindered sand.
I watch
Juice dripping from baskets of shriveled fruit
Cowering from sleeves of the sun’s limbs.
The old man sitting an old wine barrel
pokes the strings of his Lute
Forged from petrified wood
Held together and gristly goat hair and torrid cattle skin.
Destitute fingers longing to be coin quenched.
Coddled by the heat rising my shirt.
Yellow skin teased by the heat rising from
cindered sand.
I watch
Juice dripping from baskets of shriveled fruit
Cowering from sleeves of the sun’s limbs.
The old man sitting an old wine barrel
pokes the strings of his Lute
Forged from petrified wood
Held together and gristly goat hair and torrid cattle skin.
Destitute fingers longing to be coin quenched.
Sign inventory -- week 8
BEGINNING
James Wright
The moon drops one or two feathers into the field
the dark weat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon's young, trying
Their wings.
Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, i dont dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The Wheat leans back toward its own darkness
And I lean toward mine.
I think the way the poem is written depicts what is going on in the poem. the words, and the length of the sentence are quiet, and still. The words that are used, feathers and slender, are really delicate, kind of like new beginnigs.
James Wright
The moon drops one or two feathers into the field
the dark weat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon's young, trying
Their wings.
Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, i dont dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The Wheat leans back toward its own darkness
And I lean toward mine.
I think the way the poem is written depicts what is going on in the poem. the words, and the length of the sentence are quiet, and still. The words that are used, feathers and slender, are really delicate, kind of like new beginnigs.
Calisthenics -- Week 8
I just compiled some more vocabulary this week.
The theme is Imhotep
-he was an egyptian polyman. He was an expert in a number of different subjects ( architect, medicine, preist, and he was a 'government official'
-First recognized architect
-Served under the pharaoh, Djoser
-Designed the first great pyramid
-He was one of few mortals to be depicted as a part of the pharaoh's status. There was a legend of famine for seven years, and he as thought to have a part in the flood of the Nile
- He was the first person to make medicine into an official disapline
- first known to use columns in archetecutre
First person to use stone dressed buidlings
-used lintels (horizontal structural member, such as a beam or a stone, that spans an opening such as windows or doors or between two columns)
The theme is Imhotep
-he was an egyptian polyman. He was an expert in a number of different subjects ( architect, medicine, preist, and he was a 'government official'
-First recognized architect
-Served under the pharaoh, Djoser
-Designed the first great pyramid
-He was one of few mortals to be depicted as a part of the pharaoh's status. There was a legend of famine for seven years, and he as thought to have a part in the flood of the Nile
- He was the first person to make medicine into an official disapline
- first known to use columns in archetecutre
First person to use stone dressed buidlings
-used lintels (horizontal structural member, such as a beam or a stone, that spans an opening such as windows or doors or between two columns)
Junkyard -- Week 8
"he evaporated under the twisted tentacles of the sun"
-- i tweaked a line from Kyley's poem
"Gawking at the old man whose feet are khaki with sand cinder.
Hands longing to be coin quenched.
His destitute fingers poke the strings of his Lute made from petrified
wood, torrid cattle skin and gristly goat gair."
-- a line i really liked form a poem i'm working on
""between the trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
of her face, and now she teps into the air, now she is gone
wholly, into the air."
-Beginning by James Wright (p249 in vintage)
"our neighborhood sun-cured..." (Days of 1964 by james Merill)
i thought this little snippet from this poem was interesting. I'm working with some sun imagery in my poem and it seemed to fit pretty well. two thoughts came to mind: 1) the neighborhood is being cleansed by the sun, and 2) it's being aged, kind of like sun dried tomatos.
-- i tweaked a line from Kyley's poem
"Gawking at the old man whose feet are khaki with sand cinder.
Hands longing to be coin quenched.
His destitute fingers poke the strings of his Lute made from petrified
wood, torrid cattle skin and gristly goat gair."
-- a line i really liked form a poem i'm working on
""between the trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
of her face, and now she teps into the air, now she is gone
wholly, into the air."
-Beginning by James Wright (p249 in vintage)
"our neighborhood sun-cured..." (Days of 1964 by james Merill)
i thought this little snippet from this poem was interesting. I'm working with some sun imagery in my poem and it seemed to fit pretty well. two thoughts came to mind: 1) the neighborhood is being cleansed by the sun, and 2) it's being aged, kind of like sun dried tomatos.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
free entery week 8
Fifty-seven and stuck at fourteen.
Born a poor street child in Memphis, Egypt.
Now Ruler of the Field of the Fare
Pharaoh of Lakeview.
Yellow skin and bald head covered in green head dress.
Washington decorated. Royal carpets lay before him made of checks forged
with the names of those
buried in pieces behind the Third Dynasty.
Checks held together by safety pins.
Holes poked in the bare toes of the children born
from wandering wombs and a broken heart.
Snagged in their tracks leaving the carpet Hollywood
red for the children to scrub away with bare hands.
Imhotep.
The man called papa, whose DNA is colored different from the miniature
people who scrub his feet.
Keep the growing yellow bald spot on your head coved
with head dressings of Benjamin
That hide the past. Soon revealed and escape.
Born a poor street child in Memphis, Egypt.
Now Ruler of the Field of the Fare
Pharaoh of Lakeview.
Yellow skin and bald head covered in green head dress.
Washington decorated. Royal carpets lay before him made of checks forged
with the names of those
buried in pieces behind the Third Dynasty.
Checks held together by safety pins.
Holes poked in the bare toes of the children born
from wandering wombs and a broken heart.
Snagged in their tracks leaving the carpet Hollywood
red for the children to scrub away with bare hands.
Imhotep.
The man called papa, whose DNA is colored different from the miniature
people who scrub his feet.
Keep the growing yellow bald spot on your head coved
with head dressings of Benjamin
That hide the past. Soon revealed and escape.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Calisthenics -- Week 7
I really liked Erika Meitner's idea of researching a topic you know nothing about to compile new vocabulary and information about the topic. SO i wanted to do that again. I went to Alex Grey's Lecture at the University of West Georgia last night and he spoke about a painting he did that i thought was really interesting. It was about the metemorphesis of a caterpillar to butterfly. The backbone of a lot of his work also has a lot to do with 'sacred geometry'. The way he explained it was interesting, but i didnt know anything about that process before his lecture. SO, i did some research.
Molting: Shedding skin
instar: the intervals inbetween molting. (there are 5 instars)
Imaginal discs -- the layers of skin that the caterpiller has. After each molt, the new skin is thicker and tougher.
Pupa / Chrysalis -- cacoon stage
Crochets -- groups of hooks on the caterpillar's prolegs
Exuvia -- name of the molted cuticle.
Diurnal—active during the day (enlightenment symbolism)
Puddling—Butterflies gather, or puddle, at damp spots.
Molting: Shedding skin
instar: the intervals inbetween molting. (there are 5 instars)
Imaginal discs -- the layers of skin that the caterpiller has. After each molt, the new skin is thicker and tougher.
Pupa / Chrysalis -- cacoon stage
Crochets -- groups of hooks on the caterpillar's prolegs
Exuvia -- name of the molted cuticle.
Diurnal—active during the day (enlightenment symbolism)
Puddling—Butterflies gather, or puddle, at damp spots.
Free Entry -- Week 7
Circle the Square. Now you have the Sun
around the Earth. Residents in our own
fingerprints, we wander through the mazes
forever stamped on digits. Dip them, all ten,
in ink. Stamp another’s cranium;
Hyphenated humans.
The Journey is from one single point to another.
Follow the dots. One. Two. Three
paths now become apparent, moving equidistant from the other two.
Differentiating strange hallways and enigmatic chambers
The first instar is very small. It’s only job is to feed.
Eat the eggshells first.
The second instar’s head capsule has already separated from the body.
It’s second layer grows the larger,
Tougher, layer of skin that protrudes from beneath the old.
Molting.
This is done three times.
Chrysalis contain imaginal discs that shift within the cocoon
trying to find where they fit,
Like a jigsaw puzzle while the chemicals
of the metamorphosis stage initiate
Disintegration.
around the Earth. Residents in our own
fingerprints, we wander through the mazes
forever stamped on digits. Dip them, all ten,
in ink. Stamp another’s cranium;
Hyphenated humans.
The Journey is from one single point to another.
Follow the dots. One. Two. Three
paths now become apparent, moving equidistant from the other two.
Differentiating strange hallways and enigmatic chambers
The first instar is very small. It’s only job is to feed.
Eat the eggshells first.
The second instar’s head capsule has already separated from the body.
It’s second layer grows the larger,
Tougher, layer of skin that protrudes from beneath the old.
Molting.
This is done three times.
Chrysalis contain imaginal discs that shift within the cocoon
trying to find where they fit,
Like a jigsaw puzzle while the chemicals
of the metamorphosis stage initiate
Disintegration.
Junkyard -- week 7
"All beings and things are residents in your awareness"
-Alex Grey
"In a society that tries to standardize thinking, individuality is not highly prized. "
--Alex Grey
"Residents in our own fingerprints. Wandering in mazes"
-me
"imaginal discs are the thickened areas within the sac of the body wall in holometabolous insects which give rise to specific organs in the adult."
"When the caterpillar begins its remarkable process of metamorphosis, wrapped inside its chrysalis, fantastic chemical changes begin that activate the imaginal discs and initiate the disintegration of the caterpillar. The imaginal discs begin to move around, seeking each other, for the butterfly can only happen if the imaginal discs are joined as one. It is perhaps important to repeat, given our mechanical habit of mind, that it is not parts of the butterfly that are linking up, but many wholes."
-- I found this quote on a page i googled about the metamorphosis of the butterfly. I cant remember the site.
-Alex Grey
"In a society that tries to standardize thinking, individuality is not highly prized. "
--Alex Grey
"Residents in our own fingerprints. Wandering in mazes"
-me
"imaginal discs are the thickened areas within the sac of the body wall in holometabolous insects which give rise to specific organs in the adult."
"When the caterpillar begins its remarkable process of metamorphosis, wrapped inside its chrysalis, fantastic chemical changes begin that activate the imaginal discs and initiate the disintegration of the caterpillar. The imaginal discs begin to move around, seeking each other, for the butterfly can only happen if the imaginal discs are joined as one. It is perhaps important to repeat, given our mechanical habit of mind, that it is not parts of the butterfly that are linking up, but many wholes."
-- I found this quote on a page i googled about the metamorphosis of the butterfly. I cant remember the site.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
free entry -- week 6
Red is for the open wounds on the child's bare feet.
Dusty and unkempt toes.
Grounded and rooted in nothing.
there is nothing and they laugh about nothing and are happy just because.
With each step taken as they romp, yellow laughter bursts from their mouths. Yellow is for personal power deep rooted in the soular plexus.
Crowded markets full of women washed with Saris colored with Indian heat.
Red, Orange, and Yellow. Grounded Creators, and Powerful
Granddaddy Roosevelt harvests a field full Heirlooms
Red like Georgia clay, and ripe like Mid-August heat.
He would take bites out of their warm flesh and say
You know they say that if you eat tomatoes, you’ll have happiness in your home.
We ate a lot of tomatoes.
junkyard -- week 6
1) Great-grandfather Roosevelt, half-Indian, half my own father,
with a dog named Blue—a sharpe’ with an old brown collar—
you and I built this back porch and garden, Big boys and Heirlooms
the size of fists, habaneros and jalapenos you’d eat by the handful.
(In the summer your nose would sweat.) Holly baby, you’d say,
when I cried, or when my sister and brother wouldn’t let me
hold their hamster Peanut. Holly baby, you’d say, when I held
him too tight in my fists, let him go. I have had to let you go,
Roosevelt, so much so this could as easily be India, all
women’s rights and cardamom and coriander,
the crowded markets full of saris made of silks—
yellow, hot pink, orange, the colors of the desert, of heat,
of barefoot children and the joy of nothingness.
While in the distance, I half hope to find you
behind a rickshaw selling coconut water. Roosevelt,
here in Georgia, during sunset, I sit outside
and watch the chimney swifts circle the house
making their chirp chirp sound. The sun moves effortlessly
through the crowds of pines and pecan, the community
garden now turned, muscadine vines all but spent.
Fall gardening is soon. Gourds and hops, and the bright
globes of the eggplant. And I wouldn’t call them blue,
because they’re not. But somehow the name comes to me,
as the swifts descend and in the distance a hound barks.
-- Class effort
2) Red is for the open wounds on the child's bare, dusty feet and unkempt toes.
-me
3) Women washed with Saris colord with Indian heat.
Red, Orange, and Yellow.
Grounded Creaters, and Powerful
4)Grounded and rooted in nothing. Because there is nothing and they laugh about nothing and they are happy just because. With each step taken as they romp, yellow laughter bursts from their mouths. Yellow is for personal power deep rooted in the soular plexus.
with a dog named Blue—a sharpe’ with an old brown collar—
you and I built this back porch and garden, Big boys and Heirlooms
the size of fists, habaneros and jalapenos you’d eat by the handful.
(In the summer your nose would sweat.) Holly baby, you’d say,
when I cried, or when my sister and brother wouldn’t let me
hold their hamster Peanut. Holly baby, you’d say, when I held
him too tight in my fists, let him go. I have had to let you go,
Roosevelt, so much so this could as easily be India, all
women’s rights and cardamom and coriander,
the crowded markets full of saris made of silks—
yellow, hot pink, orange, the colors of the desert, of heat,
of barefoot children and the joy of nothingness.
While in the distance, I half hope to find you
behind a rickshaw selling coconut water. Roosevelt,
here in Georgia, during sunset, I sit outside
and watch the chimney swifts circle the house
making their chirp chirp sound. The sun moves effortlessly
through the crowds of pines and pecan, the community
garden now turned, muscadine vines all but spent.
Fall gardening is soon. Gourds and hops, and the bright
globes of the eggplant. And I wouldn’t call them blue,
because they’re not. But somehow the name comes to me,
as the swifts descend and in the distance a hound barks.
-- Class effort
2) Red is for the open wounds on the child's bare, dusty feet and unkempt toes.
-me
3) Women washed with Saris colord with Indian heat.
Red, Orange, and Yellow.
Grounded Creaters, and Powerful
4)Grounded and rooted in nothing. Because there is nothing and they laugh about nothing and they are happy just because. With each step taken as they romp, yellow laughter bursts from their mouths. Yellow is for personal power deep rooted in the soular plexus.
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