Work in Progress

Our friend Claudia McGill suggested cutting up a painting to make a new piece so I tried it. Not sure if this is finished. I think it needs some more fine lines or graffiti or something. It was fun to do and I will probably cut up more stuff. 

Magnetic Poetry Saturday: Ask These

Ask these tongues
how can my dreams
shine by day
yet ache like storms

together their music rains
symphony and sky
shadowless moon
above

This was another collaboration with Nina and the Oracle that fit together really easily.  We decided to surprise each other today with our artwork and post separately.  I punched holes to embroider on the paper, and then decided just to leave the holes.  The weird light is because I photographed the collage taped to the window so the sun would shine through the holes.

Magnetic Poetry Saturday: Do Magic

Nina and I came up with this collaborative verse from the magnetic poetry oracle almost instantly, and then our artwork, done separately, also fit together perfectly.  Magic! (with a little help from Photoshop)

devour fire
drink fever
dance  fly
do magic

Happy Saturday!

Plays With Planets

almost
like a streaming cloud
this linear light
plays with planets
accessing alien forces
world of galactic fire
opened completely by space

I spent one sleepless night last month doing one magnetic poem after another.  I haven’t looked at them since, but I’m sure there’s plenty of raw material to play with once I get around to it.

This poem started as a collaboration between Nina and me, but she gave up, saying she couldn’t see where it was going.  I tweaked it over a few days, so I don’t know who contributed what–a collaboration, still, even if I had the final say.

And another Rorschach painting underneath.

 

Magnetic Poetry Saturday: Hold Hope

The oracle was generous to us this week.  A three-way collaboration: O.N.K.

hold hope open
my promise to trust
a thousand worlds receive
this spirit
listen to the gifts
of your heart
where gentle rhapsodys live

Symbolic Attitude and Fuzzy Poets

Say hello to fuzzy poets
believing in symbols
almost never
facing smooth attitudes
make good vibes
dig the big mystery

Nina and I did a couple magnetic poems this week.  I rearranged things again for this one when I was putting it on my painting, although the words are the same, except for two that I eliminated.  She’s working on art for the other one.

For this one we used the “mustache” words for a change of pace.  It makes for a different subject matter for sure.  Above:  the entire fuzzy poets painting to go with our poem of symbolic attitude.

For Elusive Trope’s Magnetic Poetry Saturday.

Mad Symphony: a collaboration

Despite the bugginess of the Magnetic Poetry website, Nina and I had a wonderful time composing this poem, sending it back and forth for addition and revision many times.  I did one illustration, and Nina did two.

to stop shadows from moaning
whisper to the sky like a rainstorm
petals sing to my dreams

some say music is like a watching wind
mad symphony like a summer moon
red and frantic blowing delirious screams
over a thousand purple seas

still   life soars as love urges us
and together we shine by day

For the Elusive Trope’s Magnetic Poetry Saturday Challenge.  Join in!  It’s fun.

 

Come Together

All
the day
sounds singing
of grace saved and
the light sheltering
earth the way the elements
are combined in mystery
like blurred echoes remembering
music we have never heard before

Music of the spheres they call it
like the mind contains mirrors that
are reflecting vibrating
earth as it moves around
the cosmic wheel part
of no known time
sounds that hold
the full
all

It’s hard to know what to say anymore about people killing people.

Friday, after listening to James Taylor’s beautiful version of “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” I started thinking about the line “all the sounds of the earth are like music”, and the musical “Oklahoma” in general.   Beginning with the hope in that song, the musical runs the gamut of human behavior and emotion.  As nature holds all kinds of music in both its wonder and terror.

I’ve been wanting to do some more responses to all Nina’s amazing mandalas, and I reached back to one I previously referenced in a darker way.  Darkness/light: intertwined.  Love or war?  We can choose.  Let’s come together, not apart.

 

What Part 2

what of the air  what of the earth
water and fire all giving birth
seed and decay constant return

blue into green  green into brown
reaching for heights tumbling down
growing to shine sparkle and burn

seasons repeat present and new
brown into green  green into blue
always the time celebrate mourn

A nove otto in response to Jane Dougherty’s challenge this week.  I divided it into 3 stanzas.

The collage was inspired by one the landscapes Nina posted in January.

Contradiction

we play at fairness: love and war
we draw a rainbow in the sky
we plant a flag upon the shore
and no one stops to ask us why

we draw a rainbow in the sky
and scatter stars inside our heart
and no one stops to ask us why
we sing the sun but hold the dark

we scatter stars inside our heart
the outstretched hand an empty palm
we sing the sun but hold the dark
and shiver even though it’s warm

the outstretched hand an empty palm
the words unspoken on our lips
we shiver even though it’s warm
the future falling from our grip

the words unspoken on our lips
we draw a rainbow in the sky
the future falling from our grip
and no one stops to ask us why

I thought to do a mandala based on Nina’s old drawing that she recently posted, “All’s Fair in Love and War”.  And I decided to use the phrase as a starting point for Jane Dougherty’s challenge this week to write a pantoum.  I’m not totally satisfied with either the poem or the collage–Nina’s original drawing may actually be a much better illustration for what I wrote.  I still think it would make a good mandala, though; perhaps a less literal and revised collage is called for.

It helps a bit for me to think of the poem as a song…but I’m no Stevie Wonder.