draw a bird day: chicken music

cock-
a doo-
dle-
do cluck
cluck buk buk
kuh-kuh-
kack
ba-gawk
tuk buk tuk-
king rrrrrrr chirp peep-
ing chirp
trill errrr
cack-
le chir-
rup squawk crow
caaaaaw cock-
a-
doodle-
do

The last Kick-About prompt was a video of a dancing chicken from Herzog’s film Stroszek. I first decided to draw while watching the video on a roll of rice paper that I had. My photos did not show up that well, but Phil Gomm kindly inverted color and ground and made the lovely images above.

I really like drawing chickens, and so I did a neocolor image. Then I decided to do some monoprint outlines based on my original drawings.

The outlines were fine, but my attempts to print colors on top were not as successful, so I ended up painting over them. One thing I really like about the Kick-About prompts is that it challenges me to try lots of different things.

For the poem, inspired by David’s Waltz Wave sound poem at the skeptic’s kaddish, I did some research on chicken sounds. It turns out there are many online threads about this subject, as so many people are now raising their own chickens and are delighted by their vocalizations.

And so many beautiful and varied breeds! I’ve done chickens several times before, and I’m sure there will be more for some future Draw a Bird Day as well.

I’m taking a break for a few weeks…enjoy the rest of your summer!

summer in the city 2020

dense with heat
drivers changing shifts
bus idles

basketball
gold headphones playing
by himself

skateboard clacks
over empty courts
echoed moves

line of carts
winds around corner
still waiting

masked hunger
distances between
uncovered

heavy clouds
greyness falling now
lightning flash

For Frank Tassone at dVerse, a haiku sequence reflecting what I saw out my window this morning.

My monoprints were inspired by de Kooning, but somehow ended up looking more like Pollock.

a fragment of a dream, caught in the morning light

and I am reminded again of who I am,
what I see when I look up at the night sky,
the scent of the earth in spring–

I feel the summer lingering,
long days of sun and sand
and the salty taste I carry
through days that follow me in rhythm
with the waves–

I see the sharpness of blue sky
behind black branches,
a playground of white snow
that culminates in hot chocolate,
logs burning,
the inside warming the outer—

I have been uprooted and transplanted
so many times that nowhere is home–
everything is temporary–
I’m always expecting to move on–

but I remember looking up
through the shade of oak trees,
the roses in my mother garden,
lilacs filled with butterflies—

the rust and gold of autumn
singing beneath my feet

NaPoWriMo asked us today to talk about our origins.

 

 

Take These Broken Wings

Curse not the king, no, not even in thy thoughts, and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber; for a bird of the air shall carry thy voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.
–Ecclesiastes 10:20

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
–Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”

That which hath wings shall tell
(blackbird whirling in the autumn winds)
The birth of the sky, the void in the flow

Three minds like a tree in parallel
(rising in blueness, the mystery twinned)
That which hath wings shall tell

Blackbirds are involved in what I know
(how to release and how to begin)
The birth of the sky, the void in the flow

A man and a woman are one distilled
(diving divining reflected and twinned)
That which hath wings shall tell

The river is moving in flying shadow
(the question unseen that I can’t comprehend)
The birth of the sky, the void in the flow

Imagine these golden birds aglow
(the crow and the tree and the origin’s end)
That which hath wings shall tell
The birth of the sky, the void in the flow

For the NaPoWriMo prompt, a villanelle with lines taken from an outside text.  I’ve used both of these poetic sources before; you can see examples here and here.  To the words of Stevens and the Bible, I added text from one of my many crow poems, and art selected from my many pieces inspired by crows.

And since dVerse is conveniently featuring the villanelle form this month, I’ve linked to the collection of villanelle poems.

inquisition

Where do I hide?  I build this tree,
the branches tangled over me,
I ask myself:  how will I know
what voids this curse?  what sets me free?

I sit and sit. The hours grow.
The birds have wings—they come and go.
My rhythm cannot hold their song.
How can I breathe?  What cries the crow?

My body emptying skin to bone,
my mind hardening into stone,
falling like silence to the ground–
How do I bide?  I lie alone.

The sea and sky cannot be found.
Memories circle round and round,
searching for possibility–
How am I held?  Where am I bound?

Frank at dVerse has asked us to consider blame and forgiveness.  And a final rubaiyat for the month of February, with short lines this time.

 The hardest person to forgive is often yourself.

Draw-a-Bird Day: Unclaimed

as the stars devour
their darkest dance,
I grow ever smaller–
a feather without wings,
orbiting on cloud sails,
lingering as a hole
in the breath of ghosts

Crows.  The Oracle knows.

 

 

 

besieged

gathering like fire,
 these memories leave me swept
on abandoned shores–

I disintegrate in words
 trying to unspell the past

For Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, with synonyms for congregate and passion.

Memory is indeed a tricky thing.

 

 

Interrupted by Form

How do we
return the gift of
death?  How do
we unfold
the wrapping, respond to bone
disrobed and fragile?

How do we
sweep the sky, catch soul
patterns made
of flying
light?  How do we count the years
back into remains?

Inspired by Sue Vincent’s photo prompt above.

 

No Crows

What message
this black performance?
retrograde
running through
the clash of silence unbound,
stark with intention.

Misplaced, those
promises—passwords
forgotten,
erased and
unfigured—transparent streaks
against darking skies.

Jane Dougherty’s raven poem reminded me to visit the Secret Keeper’s words this week, and also reminded me of the various crows demanding my attention as I go about my life.  Sounds of silence (for dVerse).

Art inspired by Joan, Joni, and Vincent.

 

Over/Under

Like water
falling—running and
colliding
unabridged–
awakening and reaching,
encircled in green.

In flowers
dreaming—lost inside,
drowning—caught
on the edge
of rebirthing the crossing–
like water, falling.

For Sue Vincent’s photo prompt, above.  The poem started out as a pantoum, but decided instead to be a shadorma.  The art was in a pile of not-sure-what-to-do-with-it work–it’s a watercolor monoprint on rice paper off something else I was working on that had too much paint. It seemed to fit the prompt.

I think there’s a pair of wings in there somewhere too.

And I want to also celebrate the fact that July is #WorldWatercolorMonth, “31 days when artists around the globe come together to paint the world with beautiful watercolor and help raise awareness for arts education to get art supplies for kids who need them via The Dreaming Zebra Foundation”, hosted by Charlie at Doodlewash.