Poem up at The Ekphrastic Review
My poem, “Talking to Andy”, inspired by Warhol’s iconic soup can, is posted today at the Ekphrastic Review along with work by Marcy Erb and 15 other writers. You can read it here.
My thanks once again to editor Lorette C. Luzajic for supporting my work and the interaction between the visual and written arts.
Poem up at The Ekphrastic Review
My poem “repostory” was among those chosen to accompany the painting “Alacena”, by Maria Izquierdo, at The Ekphrastic Review. You can see the artwork and read it, along with the rest of those selected here.
I am always drawn to Mexican art, but I have no references at hand to cut and collage, so my art is more in the spirit of my words than an exploration of Izquierdo’s painting.
As is this song that keeps running through my head by Tracy Chapman.
My thanks once again to editor Lorette C. Luzajic for supporting my work and the interaction between the visual and written arts.
Diane di Prima (1934-2020)
…we do it for
the stars over the Bronx
that they may look on earth
and not be ashamed.
–Diane Di Prima
from “April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa”
I wanted to note the death of Diane Di Prima, a poet, social activist, Buddhist, and teacher. A native New Yorker, she was a member of the Beat Poets, and moved to California in the 1960’s. I made this grid of the Bronx in April 2015, inspired by her poem, “April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa”.
Read an obituary with some wonderful videos of her reading here.
And here is a reading of the entire poem that inspired my grid.
October 2020 (Harvest Moon)
autumn dance
condensed into light–
I become
gold tinged with tides,
rising and falling
I did a similar grid with circles a few years ago, but I’ve always wanted to give it another try. As with the last one, I first painted a landscape (wishing I had my gouache, but done with watercolor), then cut it up, rearranged it, and added collage dots from my collage box. Here’s the original landscape:
David Hockney-ish I think. Not my usual style, and perhaps a bit brighter than I intended. But I like the colors.
I’ve done a tanka for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday form challenge, which also works for Frank Tassone’s challenge of harvest moon. The paint oracle is totally responsible for turning my moon painting into a tree.
My new view of the full moon. I have to catch it when it passes between the buildings.
Happy October!
Invocation of the Trees
Have mercy on us
we who are poor in spirit
we who are never satisfied
we who strive to possess everything
We who are poor in spirit
bless us and teach us
we who strive to possess everything
fill us as vessels with the breath of stars
Bless us and teach us
cleanse and heal our weary hearts
fill us as vessels with the breath of stars
attach our roots with grace and truth
Cleanse and heal our weary hearts
quench our hunger with light
attach our roots with grace and truth
you who honor both heavens and earth
Quench our hunger with light
we who are never satisfied
you who honor both heavens and earth
have mercy on us
I’m reblogging this poem from 2018 for earthweal’s “mentors” prompt, adding some tree art from the archives as well.
I’ve written about trees almost as often as birds and the sea. All good and wise teachers. But trees (starting with the Tree of Life) both anchor and reach toward the cosmic why.
nineteen years (September 2020)
crisp clear sky–
leaves echo the wind
as time stops–
listen–ghostlight calls,
condensed into stars
blue light from the depths–
darkness emptying itself
into clarity
time stops once again–
leaves echo songs of the wind
My older daughter and I met at the farmer’s market last weekend, and sat on the Columbia campus afterwards drinking coffee and tea. As we watched a monarch butterfly wandering above our heads, we remarked at the deep clear blueness of the sky. It reminded us both of a September morning nineteen years ago.
shell
well, first the wayward wind—grey—if you tried to hold it, your hands remained empty–
the song of the sirens, spilled into a traverse of stone and sea—perhaps some dragon’s breath—a shape becoming uncovered, a shape turning into a wheel that reminds itself to spiral—
the beach is hungry, but in a subtle way—do not conclude that it can be ignored–
gaping portals
azure shimmering
meeting places
Stream of consciousness for Grace at dVerse. I’ve been doing a lot of this because of a recent prompt I saw that incorporated this technique, where you took a treasured object and wrote a bunch of unedited stories about it. This was from my origin story.
The original writing for this haibun took up a whole page–I just selected a few parts and made a kind of haiku by removing words from one “sentence”. The drawings are once again taken from my archives. I’ve spent a lot of time drawing shells.
triangulations
I am am three wishes
caught in a vast sea-tossed net
of indecision
Grace at dVerse asked us to use the words I am in a first person narrative.
Draw a Bird Day: Mallard
we decoy ducks–turn
them into sitting targets
for the play of guns,
cartoon them with characters
that ignore their balanced grace
I did a lot of drawings and paintings of ducks and found them to be a challenge. Often they ended up looking more like decoys than something alive. I was interested to discover that the expression “sitting duck” came from how easy ducks are for hunters to shoot and kill–less sport than slaughter.
I also did not know that they spend 2 weeks in late summer or early fall molting, replacing all of their feathers. During that time they can’t fly.
Mallards are good parents, and prefer shallow freshwater wetlands to raise their families. They are one of the most recognizable and abundant duck species in the world, and ancestor to most strains of domesticated ducks.
For Colleen’s #tanka Tuesday, poet’s choice. I’ve written a tanka.
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