Soup of the Day: Comparing Apples to Onions

I intended for my writing today to be fueled by the idea of omnicentricity and one of my favorite poems by Wallace Stevens titled “Anecdote of the Jar.”

I placed a jar in Tennessee,

And round it was, upon a hill.

It made the slovenly wilderness

Surround that hill.

 

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.

The jar was round upon the ground

And tall and of a port in air.

 

It took dominion everywhere.

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

 

But I kept getting sidetracked by random thoughts.  For example, I can’t stop thinking about a phenomenon called “street light blindness.”  It seems there are two optical events that need to be recognized in street light installations.  The loss of night vision because of the accommodation reflex of drivers’ eyes is the greatest danger.  As drivers emerge from an unlighted area into a pool of light from a street light, their pupils quickly constrict to adjust to the brighter light, but as they leave the pool of light, the dilation of their pupils adjusts to the dimmer light much more slowly, so they are in effect driving momentarily with impaired vision.  The other thing that should be considered when placing a light on a street is that oncoming headlights are more visible against a black background than a grey one.  Less threatening, but also interesting, is the notion of light pollution, which results in urban areas when artificial light hides the stars and interferes with astronomy.  A bit more menacing is the fact that light pollution can disrupt the natural growing cycle of plants.

This idea of blindness (or other related detrimental effects) caused by light came to me today because yesterday I was considering the idea of living one’s life with the goal of doing no harm.  (I was struck by the irony that ineffectually placing lights could do more harm than good.)  “Doing no harm” is a term often associated with the field of medicine, as in the theory of nonmaleficence that is taught to medical students: given an existing problem, it may be better to do nothing than to do something that risks causing more harm than good.  In other words, the cure can be worse than the illness.  (Consider the process of searching for enlightenment and the problems one can encounter along that path…)

But I am sidetracked again when I recall that a friend of mine once said that her armpits smell like hamburgers when she sweats.  (I know this is quite a leap, and sometimes I don’t understand the workings of my synapses and why I store such information, and how it is connected.  But not to worry.   Wallace Stevens says, “What our eyes behold may well be the text of life, but one’s meditations on the text and disclosures of these meditations are no less a part of the structure of reality.”  He also says, “It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.”)

Anyway, once armpits were on my mind, I had to do a little research.  And, of course, there was a website on the topic of why Girls Smell Like Onions.  (Close enough to hamburger for me.) Evidently women’s armpit sweat contains a relatively high level of a sulfurous compound which when mixed with naturally occurring bacteria turns into a thiol that smells malodorously something like onion.  (I also discovered that men tend to smell like cheese, but I will consider that later.  Maybe.)  Perhaps the onion stayed on my mind today the same way it stayed on my hands when I was cutting one up to go in a pot of soup this morning.  I tend to think we focus our attention where it needs to go, so I allowed my mind to follow the onion path.  I have been doing a lot of reading on symbolism lately.  So it seemed natural to consider the onion as a symbol.

I am constantly delighted by the way everything in the universe is connected, so I was not really surprised when I happened upon a blog titled The Universe As An Onion, which discusses the symbolism of this edible bulb.  The blog author notices that when one cuts an onion from top to bottom, the center is similar in appearance to that of an eye.  She also mentions the practice of placing onion over the eye sockets of the deceased so they could see.  This seems somehow ironic when one considers the eye irritation that can occur when cutting up onions.  Having never been a corpse, I can’t report on the effectiveness of the previously mentioned practice, but I have read that onion has been used medicinally since ancient times to prevent flatulence, anemia, and to cleanse the digestive system.  And back to the idea that a cure can contain negative side effects, it should be noted that the more phenols and flavonoids onions contain, the more antioxidant and anti-cancer activity they provide.  For example, the boldest flavored shallots seem to inhibit the growth of liver and colon cancer cells more than the milder tasting varieties of sweet onions such as the Vidalia.

Of course, my second grade teacher pointed out that onions owe much of their distinctive flavor to the olfactory sense.  She blindfolded us and had us hold our noses as we tasted bits of onion and apple.  The result was that we could not distinguish between the two. 

It seems appropriate at this point to mention that when cutting an apple crosswise, the seeds are each cut in half and form the shape of a star.  This small display of beauty also ruins the seeds in that they can no longer be planted to produce more apples. This was the inspiration for my poem, “Spin Art.”

 

“Inappropriate…” the ceiling fan whispers again, barely audible,

sounding softer than the skin on the wrist near the altar boy’s pulse,

meaning clearer than the whistle from a distant train.

“Follow the cycle of the crescent,” it would say.

 

Drawn to the blade by the promise of the blade,

pulled higher on the breeze like the loose end

of a half-freed gossamer scarf, woven to be twisted

and twisted, pulled, spiraling, whirling, and dancing on toe,

 

I mince around the center of that dark satisfaction,

until dangling by brainstem, I watch the others

spinning past and past and gone.  “Time to stretch now!”

Pulled like a weed with too much root, too much anchor,

too much need to just turn loose and spin free in the wind.

 

At a critical point, the spiral ceases to expand.  No reverse. 

So I travel the same territory over and around.

Not enough lift, not enough drag, not enough heart.  Not enough.

Sounds smooth, you say?  “Yes, but only till the sockets start to give.”

 

No fanfare, please, and no party colored banner printed out one night

in soft staccato stops and starts with all its tentatively connected parts

less meaningful than dandelion seeds lined up head to toe

along some specially selected crack of a dry July sidewalk.

 

“The only still point is the center.”  Invisible,

unless they cross-section to see if my seeds form a star.

But once you make that slice, you break forever

the silver-green membrane around each gentle potential.

And what kind of tree would a half-seed grow?

 

All the murals pick up speed until they move outside

the need to be specific.  One tree, one leaf, one green…

like a dry grass brush was dragged along the whole wet mess of eternity.

Clouds and shoulders.  Leaves and toes.  All together now!

One red dot, one last line, fine red stripe.  “One last time?”

 

Note:  I always reassure my creative writing students that most poets write about suicide at some point in their career.  It is just part of that bouncing back and forth that the brain can’t seem to keep from doing.  And while suicide can be thought of as the complete antithesis of doing no harm, it can also be a source of beauty when considered poetically, which leads me of course to one of my favorite poems, “in a middle of a room” by E.E. Cummings:

in a middle of a room

stands a suicide

sniffing a Paper rose

smiling to a self

"somewhere it is Spring and sometimes

people are in real:imagine

somewhere real flowers, but

I can't imagine real flowers for it I

could, they would somehow

not Be real"

(so he smiles

smiling) "but I will not

everywhere be real to

you in a moment"

The is blond

with small hands

"&and everything is easier

than I had guessed everything would

be;even remembering the way who

looked at whom first,anyhow dancing"

(a moon swims out of a cloud

a clock strikes midnight

a finger pulls a trigger

a bird flies into a mirror)

 

One last handful of things to consider today: 

1.     In the Middle Ages, onions were such an important food that people would pay for their rent with onions and even give them as gifts.

2.     There is an old tale of a shipwrecked man washed up on a beach covered with diamonds, which are worthless in that country.  All he has with him is a bag of onions, which are highly unknown, and therefore highly valuable, there.  He is rewarded for the onions with a shipload of diamonds.  When his brothers go back there with garlic, hoping for more diamonds, they are rewarded with the most valuable thing in the country, a bag of onions!

3.     When considering why precious stones are precious, Aldus Huxley deduces that it is because they are objects in the external world—along with fire, stained glass, fireworks, pageantry, theatrical spectacle, Christmas tree lights, rainbows, and sunlight—things which most nearly resemble the things that people see in the visionary world.  Poets and storytellers, by giving us a mystic vision of these objects with gemlike qualities, bring us into contact with the visionary world and potentially stimulate our own visions within us.

4.     Stevens says: How full of trifles everything is!  It is only one’s thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture.

5.     If you have trouble quieting your mind today, you can always go to: www.mediheaven.com where you can be lead through a “rapid relaxation” session.  In only four minutes, “you’ll feel like you’re in paradise.”  It is free.  Of course, you can gain “unlimited access” to increased clarity, purpose, balance, optimism, and energy for only $79.00 US.  Onions not accepted.

Points for Jeffrey...

             “Look at me, Jeffrey.  Jeffrey, look at me.  Jeffrey, I need you to listen to me.  Leave your utensils alone, get your feet out of the chair, and put your hands in your lap.  Jeffrey, if you don’t look at me and listen, you are going to lose a point.  Jeffrey…”  This was typical of the one sided conversation I heard each night at the table next to ours. 

I have been gone for over a week.  On vacation.  My favorite kind of vacation.  One in which I have no plans and no obligations.  This is because I benefit sometimes from examining my life from a bit of a distance in order to recognize the patterns that surround me on a daily basis.  We went to the Caribbean where I spent a lot of time walking, reading, sunning and thinking.  And I must admit, it was a little strange being in a warm climate, beside the ocean at Christmas time.  I have always been one of those festive fiends who start celebrating Christmas the day after Thanksgiving.  Pulling out old Greenberg turkey boxes filled with years of handmade decorations.  Baking cookies, making candy, and tacking up strings of blinking lights while making as few nail holes as possible around the windows and across the roofline.  When all of my kids grew up and were in college and in the military, I still tried to make things special for them, even though they might be home for only a few days at a time.  But over the past few years, some of the yuletide enthusiasm has seemingly been drained out of me.  Even the introduction of the Dave to our family seven years ago didn’t entirely rekindle my Christmas spirit.  So I thought about this while I was away… David and I don’t usually give each other presents anymore--at least, not in the traditional sense.  A few years ago we deliberately turned away from the tendency to overspend and get ourselves in debt by buying a bunch of stuff that didn’t satisfy anything in either of us.  We realized that it was just adding stress to the season.  

So we don’t give each other things anymore.  Instead, we just spend the holidays together and take time to appreciate how lucky we are to have had each other for the past 32 years. We tend to use this time to make plans for the upcoming year, and we dare to dream about the many things we could do if we really wanted to change our lives.  My most memorable gift this year was the realization that I don’t really want to change very many things about my life.  I am such a lucky person.  I talked to a lot of people who work a lot harder than I do for a lot less money.  I heard stories of hardworking people who sacrifice their personal relationships by spending months at a time away from their families so they can send home their paychecks to make the lives of their loved ones more bearable.  I saw a lot of people who were old, in poor health, and a lot who were just unhappy.  I saw a lot of families like Jeffrey’s.  Physically together, but miles apart emotionally.  And I realized that my childhood had been much like that.  I wasn’t a bad kid (and I don't think Jeffrey is either) but I could not go to a restaurant, or a playground, or a theme park, without getting jerked up by the arm at some point during the outing and threatened with dire consequences if I did not behave.  I don’t have any pleasant childhood holiday memories involving my family.  And I think that’s why I was so determined to make Christmas special for my kids.  But decorations and cookies and presents aren’t the only things that make memories.  Being present, supportive, responsible, thoughtful, and doing no harm—these are the things that make life memorable and filled with hope and strength.  I sincerely hope to give and receive these gifts this year.  And I hope that someday Jeffrey will look back on this time in his life and have a holiday epiphany.

I will conclude with a poem.

 

THESE ARE THE THINGS

I WILL REMEMBER

WHEN I’M VERY OLD

 

the breath-shaking beauty of your body

leaning toward me, hips forward

in ways I never fully understood

 

the naked longing in your eyes

and the million ways you look at me

as though you know my secrets

 

you know my secrets

before I do

 

before I knew you

I was a hollow globe

seldom shaken

and I almost never saw it snow

 

before you spread into this space behind my eyes

I wore my inspiration like a dark red robe

thought that flying dreams were a gift

learned that lying in your arms

answered the questions

swelling in my chest

formed long before I knew the value

of swelling

or punctuation

 

you are the coat I wear on Monday

to remember Sunday’s warmth

 

when I am old

I will remember that spreading my fingers

left beautiful spaces

did not make flying more difficult

did not leave me vulnerable to cold

did not limit the number of times

I was able to touch you

My Funny Valentine

It’s a strange habit, writing daily, or at least semi-regularly.  (Of course, it has been a few days since I have written, so that puts me on the verge of writing sporadically…)  It doesn’t seem to matter whether the writing takes the form of a poem, a journal entry, a blog, or a more deliberate installment in a series of memoirs, just the practice of putting words on a page change the brain for the rest of the day.  It seems for me that writing forces me to respond to my life instead of merely letting it wash over me.  I wonder sometimes what makes people want to read my writing.  Is it a form of voyeurism?  Curiosity?  The need to connect to another human without making a commitment?  I follow a handful of blogs and the reason I do so is that I am always looking to be surprised.  I am seeking that little mental growth spurt that happens when I read something I was not expecting to read.

Some days my brain is so hungry!  Just now I was reading a book by David Sedaris.   Naked.  (Not me.  That’s the title of the book.)  And I was listening to Chet Baker and had the TV on beside me, too.  Sometimes it seems that only when I am on the brink of overload am I contented.  I know this must impact my students at times.  I am always throwing things at them in rapid-fire succession.  Not literally throwing things.  Ideas.  And it usually takes seeing a mild reaction of panic come across a few faces to remind me to slow down, give examples, elaboration, room to react.  After all it is my interaction with them that makes my day feel successful.  It is as mentally satisfying as reading, writing, listening to music, watching TV, and drinking coffee all at once!

The thing that has been recurring in my mind lately is a strange and sudden realization of humanity.  I am not sure how to explain what I mean here.  For example, the first time I watched the movie The English Patient, a bit player came on the screen at the very beginning, and something in my brain clicked.  This is a person with emotions, thoughts, fears. The actor didn’t even have a speaking role.  It had nothing to do with the movie.  It was just seeing the spark of electricity in his eye, a reminder that his body was a living organism.  Very difficult to explain satisfactorily.  And I am not sure why that particular actor impacted me so.  Perhaps I was just open to it at that moment.  Perhaps he was an exceptionally good actor, gifted in the subtle portrayal of what it means to be human.

I was reminded of this again when my dog died a few years ago.  I was with her at the vet’s office and she was having a heart attack.  She was quite old and the doctor explained that the most compassionate thing we could do for her was help her stop suffering.  I will never forget that second when her life ended and her eyes became cloudy and her body suddenly seemed heavier. 

I can’t really justify the emotion that wells up in me as I write this memory.  Of course, I miss her.  She was a spectacular friend.  I miss her quirkiness and her humor.  And I miss her even more for my husband.  They were so in love!  But even in the sadness of her being gone, I love the emotion of missing her, my ability to dwell in the melancholy moment, the somewhat selfish reassurance that my heart can be so filled with feeling that it overflows, and tears run down my cheeks.

Sometimes when I am writing, David comes in and reads over my shoulder.  I warned him today not to.   It’s okay if I cry, but I don’t want to make him sad.  He doesn’t seem to have my abstract appreciation for sadness.  It just hurts him.  He is the kindest person I have ever known.  And I know he will read this.   In his own way he is also curious about the emotions and motivations of those around him.  I know he will read this.  He won’t be able not to.  So I will close with this bittersweet but mostly sweet memory for him.  Remember how Dave used to come into our house when he was just a toddler and head straight for Lady and without even saying a word take off his shoes and socks and rub his little bare feet on her fluffy belly and how they were both so happy and satisfied and connected?

It’s a strange habit, this storing of emotions.

Wordplay and the Artist's Way

I was thinking yesterday about how people decide what they want to do with their lives.  I always say that if I could do anything I want to do, I would make art and write.  I consider whether both of these are forms of escapism, but I don’t think so.  I just have this extreme appreciation for creativity.  When I write, and strangely enough, even more when I make art, I am thrilled by the idea that I am doing something that no one has ever done before.  Now of course, I know that others have written—but not exactly what I have written.  And sometimes it freaks me out to think that I may be the only human on the planet who compulsively sticks dots to her paintings!  Admittedly I don’t always do this.  For example, I am currently working on a series of retro fashion pieces that are made of strips of paper cut from magazines and books.  And I know I am not the only artist who has used this technique.  I would like to think I am using it differently though.  We'll see.  I am about to finish my second piece in the series and I have ideas for a dozen more.

As I was working today, I realized how gluing strips of text onto my panel is very similar to playing with a random sentence generator.  If you have never experimented one of these, there are lots of them online.  Even better is a site titled, “Language is a Virus.” 

http://www.languageisavirus.com/

Just scroll down under “Writing Games” and you will find a wealth of wordplay and inspiration.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that having a computer program generate a poem is a shortcut for doing it yourself.  But it can definitely inspire a blocked writer by supplying a surprising combination of words or thoughts.  The "poem engine" is pretty cool. And so is the "cut up machine."  Then when you get bored with wordplay, check out the writing prompts.  The last time I played here, I clicked on the button and received the following prompt:  "Write household poems about cooking, shopping, eating and sleeping."  I ended up writing the poem below.

AROUND THE MOUNTAIN AT THE END OF A SLEEP

you seem to think

you are as beautiful

as the sun

filtering

slanted through the trees

that you

distract me

like those beams

and drive me

headlong without regard

into traffic coming on

last Saturday

I cleaned the kitchen drawers

spent the drizzly morning

bent on trying to remember

into which clattery pullout

I had stashed my dreams

if I seem to be

invulnerable, you

are sorely misinformed

**************

Not a great poem, perhaps, but good enough to get published in The Sigurd Journal a couple of years ago.  I especially liked this journal because they published an interview with each writer, including questions about the published piece and the writing process.  Unfortunately, like so many printed literary journals, this one is now defunct.

And one last recommendation:  The Artist's Way Every Day: A Year of Creative Living by Julia Cameron.

Shoe Leather and Pleasant Weather

When the weather is nice, I like to walk to my studio instead of getting my car out.  It is about a mile and a half, so the two-way trip is just the right amount of exercise.  Better for me and better for the environment.  The trick however, is getting there without too many offers of a free ride from friends and strangers.  Especially strangers.

A lot has to do with wardrobe selection.  I have discovered that if I wear my ‘painting clothes,’ which make me look perhaps a bit too grubby, I get way too many sympathetic looks.  And it just seems wrong to garner anything even remotely resembling charity when I am not truly in need.  It also seems to be important to wear sensible shoes, not only for walking comfort, but to give the appearance that I am in charge of my journey.  It is as though a solid shoe with anything close to a tire tread for a sole keeps people at bay… somewhat.  And sunglasses seem to help, too.  Never make eye contact.

Well, never say never.  I was also reminded today that it is important as a pedestrian to be very much aware of vehicles backing out into traffic.  And I learned that it doesn’t matter how long you stand near the rear bumper of a pick-up truck, until they actually acknowledge your existence, it is not really safe to proceed behind them.  Sidewalk or no sidewalk.

And that is another issue for me.  Who is responsible for the design and paving of sidewalks in this town?!?!  Anyone who has walked more than a hundred yards knows that if you are on a sidewalk, it is sure to disappear suddenly, and not always at an intersection, only to reappear on the opposite side of the street.  Maybe.

So I pick my way across town, avoiding major intersections, jay walking by necessity, leaping puddles, kicking leaves, and trying to stay away from dogs, even those behind fences, because I don’t really trust some of those fences to keep the dogs contained.

And though my studio is only a block north of the courthouse lawn, yes, I usually circumnavigate the square, because I find it slightly dangerous that no one ever seems to come to a full halt, and mildly insulting that even though the traffic signals are set on a timer, pedestrians are still provided with buttons they are supposed to push to get the light to change in their favor.  People, these buttons do nothing!  And even though I am in danger of sounding like some sort of activist, I can’t help but wonder how much nonfunctioning buttons cost!  I mean, it isn’t like someone just painted a dot on a light pole.  They are very convincing, resisting the pressure of an index finger just enough to make you think a pulse of electricity is indeed on its way to the little blinking walking man that will eventually appear on the pole across the street to let you know it is safe to walk.  And let me caution you that it is not safe to walk, because almost no one acknowledges the right of way of a pedestrian when they are turning right!

To be honest, I don’t know if the buttons are even still there.  I have been avoiding the square so long, that they may have been removed.  Which makes me wonder how much it costs to  uninstall a fake button?!?!

Contrary to the apparent incendiary mood of this blog, I am not inflamed every step of every trip I make to and from the Image Warehouse.  I use the time to think and to not think, (pardon the split infinitive…) whatever the mood requires.  And I so love this time of year between Thanksgiving and Christmas!  Especially when the weather is so unbelievably gorgeous.  I am spending the evening cutting paper strips so I can finish my collage/painting this weekend.  Life is good.  (And no, it is not just the tryptophan talking…)

Highest and Best Use

Highest and best use is a term used in real estate.  It states that the value of a property is based on the use of the property with the highest and best use being that which produces the highest property value.  I thought a lot about this idea after reading several comments on Facebook recently, comments related to the perceived decline of Athens, Texas.  I was admittedly at a loss when it came to sorting out the opposing and sometimes accusatory comments, so I did not add my voice to the mix.  Instead I turned, as I usually do, inward.  I turned also toward the things that comfort me: art and literature.  And since Athens was so named because it was hoped that the town would be a center of culture and learning, perhaps this was a good place to start looking for an answer. 

I have a habit of reading many books at the same time.  And I am often astounded when I find connections springing up between the various texts.  I have listed below the things I read today.  They will undoubtedly influence not only my art, but my life as one member of the community in which I have lived for over thirty years.

In The Essential Jung I read, “Jung of course accepted that man is a social animal, and realized that the majority of mankind are content to live in accordance with the collective, social conventions of their time.  But the people who really interested him were not those who were thus adapted, but the exceptional individuals whose own nature compelled them to reject conventional ways and discover their own path.  The development of individuality, the discovery of what an individual really thinks and feels and believes, as opposed to the collective thoughts, feelings and beliefs imposed on him by society, becomes a quest of vital significance.”

This brings up the following questions: Is not a successful community one in which a variety of individuals can co-exist, each following his or her own path?  What is the obligation of a community with regard to the individual?  And conversely what is the obligation of the individual to the community?

In her book, Painting from the Source, Aviva Gold writes, “Our culture and education system brainwash us into believing that painting is open only to a handful of uniquely talented individuals worthy of the title ‘artist.’  Yet indigenous peoples all over the world understand that every human being is an artist.  In Bali, the same word means both ‘human’ and ‘artist,’ and making art is as much a part of everyday life as planting rice.”  

I would like to see the arts become more a part of the lives of everyone in my community.  What can I do to make the arts more accessible?

In his Guide to Yoga and Meditation, Richard Hittleman writes, “Whenever you catch the machine-like ordinary mind playing the record, distracting you, filling you with useless thoughts which consume your valuable time and vital energy, order it to stop!  Tell it in no uncertain terms that you are not interested in these superfluous, meaningless thoughts and that you do not want them to arise again.  If you will issue this order whenever you observe the ordinary mind involved in its antics, it will soon stop forcing your attention upon these things.”  He goes on to say, “Also, during your leisure hours, notice if your mind is cluttered with idle day-dreams, wishful thinking, repetitious thoughts of the past and fantasies of the future.  Such workings of the ordinary mind sap our life-force and lend substance and reality to the illusionary way in which we see the world and ourselves in relation to it.  If you use the above methods of suddenly, unexpectedly getting the ‘feel’ of your ordinary mind, of observing the thoughts which are passing through it at various time of the day, you will become very aware of how much these thoughts include useless concern, false anxiety and foolish daydreams.” 

Would it not be a wonderful environment if everyone would take even a few minutes each day to transcend the clutter that takes up so much of our mental space?

In Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life, Natalie Goldberg writes, “The mind is the writer’s landscape, as a mountain scene might be the landscape of a visual artist.  Just as a visual artist studies light, perspective, color, space, we write out of memory, imagination, thoughts, and words.  This is why it is so good to know and study the mind, so we may become confident in its use and come to trust ourselves.” 

Goldberg also says, “Let passion burn all the way, heating up every layer of the psyche, the conscious and the unconscious. “  She advocates the following as a writing exercise:  “Write about something you really loved, a time when you felt whole and complete in an activity all for itself.  It could be something as simple as learning to make a grilled cheese sandwich, or a time your uncle taught you to tie your shoelaces into a bow.  Something you concentrated on as a kid because the ability to concentrate is where the bliss and love come from.  Be specific but don’t forget to throw in a detail about a cloud out the window as you bent to tie the shoe or the chandelier above your head as you leaned down.  This is good practice.  While you concentrate and narrow in, you are also aware of the whole world.”

So this is how I spent my time today, concentrating and narrowing in, becoming aware of the world.  Not everyone contributes to a society by joining a committee.  Some simply do what they do, quietly and with determination.  It takes so many types to make a town.  I am one of many.   I have no answers.  But here is some poetry, a few pieces of myself that I send out into the world today, thankful that I have a safe place in which to pursue my own highest and best use.

“Blue Blood” is the result of the Goldberg exercise while “Seated” comes from the type of meditation discussed by Hittleman.  “Prone” is sort of a combination of the two, childlike appreciation combined with a deeper realization.

BLUE BLOOD

Tree frog on the back door screen,

strangest frog I’ve ever seen.

The back porch light seeps through your skin

illuminating life within.

 

Aortic arches filter light

against the backdrop of the night,

while renal arteries branching, curve

like thin blue fingers through tangled nerves.

 

Your tiny pumping heart shines through

and your life-blood surges, clear and blue.

Translucent Blue Blood, tell me true,

could you be my prince?

 

SEATED

you have taught me

to sit strictly           

with my arms                                   

rotated

turned against

pain and pain and pain 

until I learn

there is no strain           

the body           

cannot           

withstand 

then when the vibrations begin

as I push pain               aside           

   pain               aside with a burst 

till the flower unfolds toward night

till I am darkness on the

left        and pale shadow on the right 

I am right then           

right there                       

right next to that edge

right next to the leftovers

cold squash in the Tupperware 

then the door shuts

and the lights

go                        

…off

 

PRONE

Light beams paint bright streamers

when I move my head this fast.

But once the fog rolls in, the farthest grave

no longer makes a good landmark.

From where I stand on shore, the boats glow white.

They soar serenely, oars like dove’s wings stroking up

 

then down.  Sometimes I like to think you’re lying near,

amidst a sea of shimmery grass, your parachute

draped casually round your hips, your silver plane

against the hammered clouds enticing me

to grab the sun before it hits the earth.  I’ve always

loved you with the vigor of a flowering weed.

 

I like the heavy doors that close the church, the sounds

they make, their thunder.  And I like to shake my head

to swirl the stars.  Come with me to the lake.

There is a ladder by the well.  Or we can climb the dried up tree

and take the single peach that dangles like a teardrop

from a spindly limb.  Come climb with me and see.

 

Fade or multiply, we all diffuse,

and I won’t hang on this cross very long.

So we better sing while we can,

burning, flames in our hands.

Look close enough to see my stamens.

Sigh loud enough to make the candles dance.

'Cause there’s a hole in the sky, and I’m gone.

 

 

 

 

 

Laying out Morphemes and Memes

Chicken, cheese, children, Chicago, and child labor.  The sounds alone of these words form a small poem.  With so much alliteration, it just can’t be helped. And then there is the textual chiaroscuro of the proper noun Madame Chiang Kai-shek, all the associations that spill out with that twanging name, followed by a description of Chile, “it clings to the Pacific Ocean side of the Andes Mountains, and covers about half the continent’s western coast.”

As I am slicing through the white space that forms a band of separation between these lines of text, the visual images invoked by the words resonate and morph as they are juxtaposed.  These are the things that make up the background of the painting I started today.  They are all cut from an encyclopedia printed in 1964, the perfect foil for the 60s fashion piece I just sketched out on the snowy white canvas.

As I sat in the doctor’s office waiting room yesterday, I read an interview with poet Michael Waters in a 2006 issue of Arts and Letters: Journal of Contemporary Culture.  Waters talks about how the sounds of words in poems are perhaps even more important than the meaning of the words.  “Any verse is weak when it is not attentive to sound work, to tactile qualities divorced from literal meaning.”  He cites the same idea from William Carlos Williams who refers to, “the words themselves beyond the mere thought expressed.”  The same theories of composition apply to art as well.  Sometimes it is the arrangement of the parts that make such an impact.  In the interview Waters relates a brief story about photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson who takes a postcard of a painting to the museum, then turns it upside down in front of the painting to compare images.  “You can see it more clearly this way,” he explains.  The subject is no longer emphasized.  This method of tricking the brain by changing perspective also works with poetry.  Waters refers to Williams’ practice of reading backward to enjoy the sounds of the words out of context.  He says he starts from somewhere near the end, makes his way back to the beginning, and thus finishing, finds his own sensual pleasure greatly increased.  “I am much better able to judge the force of the work in this way,” he explains.

Waters agrees.  He says, “I like to do this just to hear the sounds that exist on the page.  I remain aware of the way words clamor against each other or with each other, the musical phrasings, the chiming effects that occur.”  This is the very reason I like creating a word collage as the background of my new series of paintings.  The field then becomes a serendipitous series of combinations—words connected in ways they would never have been connected.  With all of the sounds pushing and pulling against each other, it almost created a quietly humming word-scape into which the prevailing image is couched. 

Waters illustrates his word sound theory with comments by artist Alberto Giacometti who said, “One might imagine that in order to make a painting it’s simply a question of placing one detail next to another.  But that’s not it.  It’s a question of creating a complete entity all at once.”

As a visual culture, we have long been influenced by even the tiniest details of the fonts chosen to convey messages, by the way words are presented on pages and screens.  But it seems we are losing that attention to detail.  Many of our messages come generically and imprecisely packaged.  For example, I find myself irritated by the streaming information that appears at the bottom of my TV screen.  Not only is it invasive, it is filled with misspellings and presented in a sans serif type that offers neither visual elaboration nor the appeal of cleanliness and simplicity. 

So when I am playing with my small strips of text, I think about how the letters are subtly joined together with the small lines used to finish off each letter, the way each phrase brings forth a response as I lay it down permanently with glue, the change that occurs as it is connected, sometimes parallel, sometimes end to end, with its word siblings.  I think about how the sounds in isolation impact me, and in the near future, the viewer. 

In conclusion, am including one of my poems below titled, "When the Stream of Consciousness Turns Downward."  It is part of a series called Falling Bodies and was inspired by the writings of D.H. Lawrence.  Please feel free to read it backwards.  

shoulders shoulders shoulders

fingers twine then tighten         soft

rough touch

to such a place

just out of reach

and then

that sweeping urge to power

down the line from hip to knee

the knee that gives then gives then gives

more 

higher up

from hip          to knee

that feather touch

just out of reach

just reaching

shoulders shoulders shoulders

chest two times

I long to 

shoulders

open mouth

to knee

this urge 

this higher up

just so

just

so