12.12.12




















My work hollers at me, I hear it loud and clear. Are there other ‘else’ brave enough to tell me they hear it, too? My work lives as thoughts. I have collected these thoughts over the years, categorizing them, comparing, taking notes on the notes.

They question me;
If you manifest me perfect, exactly what you want, if you EVER finally manifested the artwork perfect — would you be afraid to try again?

I nail them down with colorful glass-head pins, spread open on the cork board parading with the other though-captives and notice that some of them still twitch.

21.11.12

 






  

Just one regular breath, that’s all.
I seem to be better at getting the entire picture and then taking it apart to understand it … not so good at getting a bit at a time and adding onto putting the puzzle together.

I just found out most religious relics where found during the time of the Crusades. Interesting that these things were found when mass faith was ebbing again and again, only to surge when another relic was found. In a big way, this meant relics were an early form of propaganda.
An idea whose time had finally come!

I have with me two gods, Persuasion and Compulsion. -Themistocles

A necessary condition of knowing is belief and truth.

All misunderstandings are my own.

19.10.12















Isolation is no longer an option.

Figuring is a compelling thought, the complexity of words when used as a constrictor knot. The slip of the noose never loosens. Trust in only the simplest of things. I hear it loud and clear.

The 12 step/ping on eggs plan.
Most of the time I feel like I’m on the Twelve-step program and I’m not even an addict … is this the human condition?

Life is a series of stretching, and settling back in.

Experience or security, which to choose?

Jump ahead with an idea and then find the form. All of the info needed —not building knowledge—  but taking huge leaps … and then finding out how the puzzle pieces fit.

You all know how to do this  — we’ll come back, after this, for the hard part.

1.9.12

-->













Way Random
Yes, there is an immediacy, visual satisfaction, and accepted beauty in symmetrical. I have a long-time collaborator whom goes to symmetry FIRST, and that is good play for me ... because I do not think symmetrical naturally. Asymmetrical comes out and I need to work at finding a symmetry. It can be true, though, in art as in nature — the most striking look is symmetrical.

Pacing the floor and staring down into the wood grain, I spy the dog profile, the man in the moon, the kinda sorta — over and over again. With an inward smile at the portrait of the artist as a space cadet — the pacing stops and walking begins.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; 
the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.  -Plato (the man)

I have felt that whether, is an odd word. It looks to me to be spelled wrong. 
It does not work as well written as in verbal speech.
   1. Used to introduce an interrogative content clause (indirect question) that consists of multiple alternative possibilities, and indicate uncertainty between them; if.
          He chose the correct answer, but whether by luck or by skill I don't know.
 2. Used to introduce a yes-or-no interrogative content clause (indirect question) that consists of a single possibility, and indicate uncertainty over it; if, whether or not.
          Do you know whether he's coming?
   3. Used to introduce multiple alternative possibilities, and indicate the irrelevance of which is the case; regardless of whether, no matter whether.
          He's coming, whether you like it or not.


8.7.12

















Jumping into unstudied situations.

The fire flared up and fell – no one ran to catch it as it slid down the sharp incline of the hill destroying the gold that was so very hard to conjure. The flame powerfully snatched treasure in the mundane calm cycle of consuming, melting and defecating, leaving the left-behind to congeal into a big unrecognizable mess.

The simple rice bowl was broken and had a void that was never put together again in just the right way. There was a tiny chip missing that kept it from being mended properly. That negative space is now filled with gold — the perfect metal, the solar metal — to heighten its history and beauty.

—————————————————————————————

He saw through the walls of fire with the intensity
of seeing something of great interest.
Even thought the other room was held empty,
of thought or purpose.

—————————————————————————————


Picking through the fuselage she found a memory that was waiting to be unwrapped. She could feel the sharp edges under the charred swathe belying recognition. It had been abandoned long ago;  hoping it would find a new place to rest,  finding a home far away form the originator. 

3.7.12






      
Like an ancient Egyptian, I spent the mornings drawing a likeness 
on the inner soles of sandals, and so, throughout my day 
          I symbolically crushed the enemy with every step that I took.
     
   O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,--
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue--
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
- Marc Antony  /via Shakespeare

13.6.12



















History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley  
Everything being a constant carnival,  there is no carnival left.
 -Victor Hugo
A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil. 
  -Victor Hugo

25.5.12







These are the eyes of a maché Minotaur mask.
This is all that is left.

Thoughts have been too wiley to capture. I need a larger net.
Here are a few of the smaller ones that fell for the booby trap.

I no longer assume.
(not just an interesting idea)

In this dream, I am driving in traffic. I climb in the back seat to get a better view of what just went past, a wider view of what is going on. In back I can neither steer nor break, I’m totally out of control. …  and …  everything is okay, it works out on its own just fine.
The mind is so very loud when it is silent.

Using a needle with an eye as big as a camel.

I like the metaphor Ship of Fools. I like the real life objective of singling out individuals that are less desirable, and give them the honor of a one-way ticket out of the harbor. They’d land on another shore … where eventually they be rounded up again to embark on another voyage somewhere else. Those must have been the most interesting of happenings.

7.5.12


  


 
It's an engine of creation.
If it works, don’t fix it. If it’s broken, don’t fix it.
I was resigned to carrying a weapon and join the service. Hearing I was to be drafted anyway I did myself the favor, got real drunk in the classic off-to-war type of way and headed off. In training I learned I was to wear a white uniform with red diagrams on it. I didn’t understand if I was to be read as information or stand out as a target. Before I could ask WT, I was sent back — back to exact locations leaving notes to people known and not. The letters were pretty little things wrapped in rags explaining ominous timing, farewell, and intent. The receivers where to recognize and examine the kismet, or not.
  
---

Well then, how DO you work? I mean, in general.”
“Generally,” Kim answered honestly, “I agree to whatever the client likes, and then I go and do what I want to,” she rolled her eyes and shrugged, “You know, in general.”
 They both climbed up on the tailgate and looked into the cooler. Kim discarded her thigh high lace-up sandals and rubbed at the tattoo marks left by the leather straps.
Les handed her lunch, and she immediately ripped open the hoagie and began digging through the sandwich to discard what she would not eat.
“Ill take that,” he interrupted her arm in mid-air.
“Here, they make my teeth squeak.”
Ignoring a jeweled winking shine from a bit off in the distance, he tossed the pickle into his mouth and continued the idea he wanted to get across. “Like I was saying, that Buick/Opel ’76 is an ugly car, I mean 2 for 1 ugly. Ahead-of-it’s-time ugly.” His mood was all pink and baby blue, teetering on the fun Sagittarian/Gemini nightmare that he embodied.
Tiring of this extended conversation she sang out, “Got it!” extending the vowels. “Don’t you just love the way the desert is so VERY quiet.”
He smirked and communed with the sandwich, his jaw popping.

---

It is all happenstance without much insight. There were neither names nor address on the small bundles. I began to wonder if the idea, the fact, of synchronicity came into play. Does it have a pause button? What happens when he receiver is not looking or listening? On altered levels? What is an altered level? Are all levels altered to individuals? Are these, too, synchronized? I was feeling like I was back at a middle school, puffing and theorizing walking through walls. Interesting questions without practical experience. That’s the problem with this job, too much time to think. Better to dwell on those impossible koans instead of the thwart factor. Working fast in the dimensions and conditions they gave me, spraying a mouthwash of note constellations across a vast area. I Hurried to get finished, but also felt dread in getting back to home base.

---

Thinking of nothing in particular but hoping for a thought to catch hold, Les hummed Canon alla Ottava slowly, a short fugue he had known since he was 7 years old. His fingers absent-mindedly moved to hit cords on an invisible harpsichord.
Kim was reminded of her earlier chapters. Processing her life in five minutes the way our brains do because they can. It read like a Herman Hesse novel, edited with a multitude of breakfasts and trips to the bathroom. An interesting full life, one she could count on throwing a curve at the right time — but there was always the whiff of anxiety just before a shift. The doubting that something will fall into her lap, just before something falls in her lap.
A piece of trash looking strangely like a rag spat out of no-where on no-wind and gently settled on red metal, like a burned paper scrap from a far off fire.
“Why DO you like the desert?”
“Well,” she simplified, “It’s a large blank canvas or blank sheet of paper to me.”
He arranged another smirk imagining a pressure cooker. Picking up on this mental image she added,
 “Okay, a hot canvas. Anything can happen. It’s a white screen that at any time anything will burst through and reveal itself. Something you didn’t notice before.”
“You’re are scarring me.” Les mocked, “Anita, white is for babies!’”
He loved her, but loved to tease her more, keeping her from spinning out completely. Her triple Scorpio nature always lurked.
Kim palmed her chin and splayed her fingers, “Ha! You came with your mouth open. It’s immaterial. But it’s usually something cool, nothing scary about it.”
“Touché.”

---

Delivering fate is like connecting the dots. A shattering and replacing of stars. It became an aerial view of a city with manhole covers, bright circles of a primary colored twister carpet connected line-to-line. Of the million delusions maybe there’s only one copied over and over. This was all beyond my threshold of adventure. Mars in Cancer. But, who would be brave enough to say so? Not me.

---

Les fell patient waiting for the wide white screen to crack open with a missing piece. Patiently waiting for a possibility of  Godot.
“Ever feel like your looking for gold in a copper mine?” he offered. They both looked out, their gaze following a meandering gully left by a recent flash flood.
A yellow balloon drifted past them high up in the atmosphere along an escape route from an amusement park 74 miles away.
After another long pause, Kim seceded the campaign.
“Okay, let s get going, I’m not finding what I came here for.”
Jumping down, she stretched sideways with her hands on her head. She followed him into the truck.
“And, on the way back please, don’t desecrate Motown.”
He raised an eyebrow, “Didn’t I show you my hall-pass?”

A piece of rag flew off the top of the cab as they U-turned and peeled away.
-30-

19.4.12
















You know the feeling when you sip tea and feel yourself falling through the floor, pummeling into the  center of the earth without  the aid of a spoon, out the south end and keep going? This is that.

Choka #22
Bumped off of the plank
The trumping of values made
Into deeper depths
The EVER perfect swan dive
Igniting prospects
Through the blackest of wonder
If a god’s in sight
He’s not a doctor dentist 
Don’t let out an Ahhhhhh….
Keep the mouth shut up
The fourth emotive of awe
Is not respected
Just enjoy the brief transit
Powered by flashlight
Even with failing batt’ries
Devouring space
Comparing heavenly bods
Moguls to man’uver
Expanding beyond concept

Those winging singing
Shadows on their high horses
a hum of ‘not here’
Only the orchestra’s string
Section tuning up 
Sounding like birds answering
Each other with riffs
enie meanie minie moe
Ready for the kill
Leave only a clouded view
of un-spectac'lar
A quick glimpse of an eclipse.
Small green crucifix’
Are worn turned toward their hearts
I’ve seen things that you 
People would never believe
Printed on white tees
While the boldest of type in
permanent squeaker
Has Need to Get out Much More
Louder than needs be 
Is writ on human foreheads
Don’t look in our eyes
And you will not discover
The look of distrust
They turn heads as comets do
Then elegantly
Trail the sharp icy crystals
Of being stood up
It is the best they can do
Post-cosmic gotcha —
You will know that Surrender
Isa powerful tool

In scrambling to pick up  
Scent with broken wings
I see the loathsome shadow…
There is the hangman
He’s fumbling with the noose
Not an ideal end
But for when the lights glow up
Irresistible
Velocity in leaving
Why look under here?
For the love of your life call
And I kid you not
666-666-6
Recognizable —
His right hand will be hidden
And his face will be bowed low.

10th DoM — Choirs of Shadow Flying by Violent Eclipse


10.4.12


A bone yard can seem like an apocalyptic setting. This one, just outside the enormous theme park held parallel two popular pedestrian roads. The acreage could be seen above composed as a massive Zen garden holding enormous neon signs half covered in false ivy and topiary, a dead dragon exposing its skeleton of wire guts where maché skin had been eaten away by rodents, and a façade of a charred saloon. Indescribable and misunderstood humps of lost-useful things too big to be trapped indoors all nestled on the bleached antiseptic sand. The wabi-sabi of calm and individual. From the ground it looked like a giant’s playpen that had thrown toys around to amuse himself, or perhaps to strategize warfare of objects. Looked at a third time; a mental map, a large hippocampus’ treasure.  However, that is going a bit too far.

Jenny was a slight young woman intent on beginning over and over, with blunt feet with the posture of a stargazer. Wallace was studied in drawing an analogy between the macrocosmos of nature and the microcosmos of man, without much interest in between. He seemed never to begin nor end conversations, comfortable instead with a continuous inner speak that jumped out now and again.  Like miniature articulating dolls they appear from the direction of the ten-foot cyclone barrier. They have used this cut through many times and were not so unimpressed as familiar with the sites.

They walked through the distressed junkyard tossing out famous last lines.
“This is not as dangerous as it looks.”
“Ha, if weren’t safe they wouldn’t let us do it.”
“I can still drive.”
“We’ll be safe under here….”
“This rope will hold.”
Laughing came easily with easy company.

“Oh yea’” he said picking up a thread of an earlier conversation,
“I got it; every religious conviction then, by nature, is half speculative.”
When her confirmation was not forthcoming he added, “Qui tacet consentire videtur?”
“Right, grasshopper,” Jenny offered with a quirky smile erupting.

With her forearm she wiped back her long boyish sweaty bangs exposing an impressive birthmark over her center eye. It was a vestige of a former life.
He egged her onto a story he had heard numerous times. Thinking herself as being measured, she straightened her small frame, gaining composer and height as she walked on passing two-story ball and jacks, and a nest of archaeopteryx. Wallace smiled for what was coming and also for the advantage of now having space for his own thoughts. A bit of harmless trickery.

She told what she remembered, though words could not capture the richness and mystery of the tapestries that bore her image.
“We were not treated as well as you would expect. By nature we were holy things. The few of us evoked a since of preciousness to man but we were warriors and had to defend. Our safety vanished when we became known. When you are rare and as beautiful as we you do not need to rely on magic … only malice. Our lives where fierce winds. The hunters would use false magic. But, we were not touched by charms or caged by low fences. The men were cloaked in charity, holding nets of magic, uttering profanity under their breath at every defeat. They blamed us for attempting escape. They blamed us when their trickery did not land us and they only became more determined to incarcerate our spirit.”

Her face grew darker in the shadow of a ridiculous massive sea monster.

“When the secret weapon appeared — a glowing white symbolizing the comfort we sought — we eventually fell. We could not sway the Virgin for long. We were not so strong against Her allure. Who of the forest dwellers had the inner power to deny Her? We were caught and bred into delusion. We were reduced to the ineptly profane and spat with irreverence. Her bloodied white gown our embarrassing mantle. Mythosfied into plastic pastel colored ponies.”

Letting out a slow breath, Jenny brightened tossing her head back.
“Your turn,” she queued loud enough to jolt him from his obvious private reverie. 
“I was once and future primordial spec of which all things came to be and then the end.”

Wallace was whistling the preamble to the Superman Theme as they found the chink in the fence, maneuvered through, and were gone to the other side.

22.3.12



I am rarely a bud found blushing in a dystopian movie.
Okay, bad start.
Again.
Our hopeful faces turn one by one toward the weak dawn light.
Again.
The filtered dawn breaks harsh over the landscape, creeping painfully slow over each dewy face. 
We strain our energy toward the new day practicing our guiding principles;
Be content with your color.
Be content in all weather.
Be content in overcrowding or unaided and alone.
No root wrestling.

Not great, but now I’ve lost the chain.
I think, perhaps, we flora should be happy just to be beautiful and not worry too much about sounding clever with our language of flowering bouquet.
Poor ending.
Indict me. Just, please don’t step on me.

23.1.12


 Sometimes art isn’t the sort you can see from a cross the room.
It may seem scary, but sometimes you need to get close–up to understand.

This was a different type of day.

Prophecies will pass; as for waging tongues, they will cease; as for notorious knowledge, it will fade.

There were garments everywhere. Where did all this come from? I’ve not entered the Cave of Lost Children; these clothes all too large. At least up-side they have clothing. All I can make out are the elongated Boticelli figures looking as though crumpled at the bottom of a canvas. Sandro was certainly a frustrated fashion illustrator. I can’t tell who owns that arm, whose leg is sticking out over there, which has that unnaturally long neck. Eyes rape me. I divert more than stare, wanting to know just enough to ponder the questions. Shall I ask for a line-up? Would everyone begrudgingly amuse me? Not likely. Elbows and knees pointing up like Burma-shave signs, mimicking the way out. There are enough ruins and faded ghost signs here reminding them of the middle world above. Damn, I forgot the popcorn. Journeys are always a better movie with concessions, and not a stand in sight.
I’ve come searching for someone in particular. For some one specific. In the stream of consciousness the ‘I’ is the thing relevant. I really hate that. I; again.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be pissed away.

Proactive is not working so to have a sit. Dropping into the fetal/futile position, I form the ‘O’ in hope, or in pOssibility. The hole for them to jump through and escape into.
Hoping the sought soul will recognize a hero and leap at the chance to be saved. Hoping goes nowhere. Returning empty handed is defeat, however, and I would never pick up again this quest. Empty handed doesn’t pay the Bill. Mute souls scatter by to ask questions for unidentified reasons. Not enough to pay a visit, just borrowing?  Do I not look like a glimpse of news of the war overhead?  A torn piece that fluttered down the small shaft. Yes, they are unaware I am a broken off bit of the thundering, catastrophic, never decisive conflict. From here the Megiddo playing above ground is a soft roar that rocks and comforts and pulls.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child; I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

Strap onto my back and you can be recovered. Which soul dares?
Soul retrieval isn’t what it used to be. So many in the lost-to-be-found, so little time.
Go find yourselves. Ha! I should have worn that T-Shirt. I give you reasons when you ask for a yes-no.
I’m cold and dampish in this work. My garments wait, along with my power animal back at the entrance. Unless he has retreated. Perhaps humility is good for something.

Okay, someone steps up to the plate. ID is affirmed.

We see though a glass, darkly; the mirror dimly, but then face-to-face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully un/known.

Hey William, what ya got there? (Power animals can be annoying. If omniscient, why ask?)
What I came for. Have a look-see, no don’t look. I got it. Just lead the way.
Everyone’s thin neck has its own kilter.
Meaning?
Everyone has a unique point of view.

Soul retrieval has become soul searching. I guess it always has been.

 So now? Faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the great test of these is love.
 - Corinthians

12.1.12


 I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.
-Gertrude Stein

There is no absolute point of view from which real and ideal can be finally separated and labelled.
-T. S. Eliot

As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.
-Victor Hugo