Collage Play

Companion Pieces

 

EVERYONE’S GOING TO LOVE HER

The woman on the cover needed to be seen.  And with so many people searching for reflections in rooms made of stone, it was not difficult to arrange for her to be captured in a frown-blue gown.  People, one good eye was all it took, that and a willingness to drop the blue…

But over the years time warps the watch face, and knowing no news becomes habit.  It became impossible to go far into the chemically treated pale hair to the dangling roots and the determined starts, to push aside a spine bound by threats, to go under the prominent ribs, subvert the promise of contextual design and press beyond hip bones set in a practiced gesture of discreet distortion.  In other words, it was hard to find an authentic reproduction of original woman.

When the dark times came, she counted backward and spoke to the sky.  She told herself what she thought… and she never blinked.  Each time the light flashed, she imagined herself cradled in a net with its fibers connected to the nets of her sisters far-reaching, all weaving, each determined to catch for her self a whispered, sacred name.

By looking through the lens, she discovered the truth.  And she turned off the light…

 

CAN I GET A WITNESS?

I remember the soft woman smell of a brown chiffon dress with its closely spaced white polka dots and that my mother wore it on the day she came to see me after staying gone over a month in Arizona.  But I don’t remember why my grandmother refused to make me a polka dot dress like Mamma’s…

**********

One of my earliest memories is of a board book illustrating opposites.  Big puppy.  Small puppy.  My brother was two years older than me and liked trying to teach me the secrets of the stiff pages.  Up.  Down.  I depended on him a lot in those days; our household was always in a state of turmoil.  Happy.  Sad.  And Mamma was usually glad to turn me over to him.  She always thought of me as being an overly sensitive child.  Good.  Bad.  And she was afraid I spent too much time worrying about things I couldn’t change. 

The first clear image I formed of myself was that of the small, blond, waif who glared back at me from the plastic covered pages of the family album.  I remember one time in particular studying that flat depiction of my face centered in a well-staged family portrait and wondering who had tinted my eyes blue, and why I didn’t remember wearing that pink dress or posing for that picture… or why I was such a serious looking child.  It was the first time I experienced the discrepancy between the way I saw myself and the way I felt inside.  Not long after that I realized that my self-image was further complicated by the way other people saw me.

By the time I was in sixth grade I had developed definite ideas of how I wanted to be perceived. On school picture day I wanted to wear my bangs loose instead of clipped back and even though I’d been warned by Mamma to keep them neatly pinned, I let them loose to swoop seductively across my brow.  Captured on film in the full flush of my defiance, the result was quite satisfying.  My mother took one look at the resulting pose and didn’t say a word.  I never saw those pictures again.

My mother was a stunning woman, the kind of woman you would expect to see on the cover of a magazine.   I used to dream of being as pretty as she was.  But I was also disturbed by the way her beauty came and went with her moods.  When she was happy, she dressed the part in every way.  She wore beautiful clothes, had the latest, most glamorous hairstyle, and adorned her beaming face with cosmetics.  When she was sad, she looked like a Mamma impersonator.  She shuffled around the house in an ironically orange caftan that floated uncertainly about her body as though reluctant to make contact with her washed out skin.  Her wide blue eyes refused to sparkle and the outer edges of her disappointed lids drooped under the weight of unshakeable sadness.  Mamma was sad a lot.

As the years of my childhood progressed, I watched her as she tried to mask her sorrow.  The photo albums in our den were filled with Easter pictures set on our impossibly green, sloping front lawn, carefully crafted photos of Mamma dressed in a costly pastel suit with matching hat and gloves and handbag and shoes.  And she looked as lovely as a cover girl.  In some of the pictures she was really smiling.  The kind of smile that’s almost always followed by a little laugh.  I could tell because her teeth were showing. 

Not everyone knew it but Mamma hated her teeth.  They were delicate like a child’s teeth and though they were perfectly straight, they had tiny spaces in between.  She was self-conscious about them and always tried to hide the small gaps as though they were potential vulnerabilities allowing minute whispers of her self to escape, opening herself up to invasion.  I always liked it when I saw Mamma’s teeth; it meant she was really happy, so happy she didn’t bother to hide behind a shuttered-mouth.   But in most of the photos Mamma’s eyes were unable to hide for even the fraction of a second it took to snap the annual Polaroid the determined shadows of her emotional desperation.  She was stretched too thin to protect herself, and as the years went by she stopped trying until the camera was put away in the hall closet, eventually becoming an obsolete model for which film could no longer be purchased.

Color Theory and Other Nonsense

So, maybe I have reached my expiration date with regard to Facebook.  I would gladly overlook the poor spelling, punctuation, and grammar, if not for the lack of content.  The combination has finally pushed me over the edge.  I’m not saying I am any better than others who have posted random nonsense.  One afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I notified the world that I was drinking Merlot and listening to Portishead.  I doubt if anyone cared.  I could have been sucking down a vodka martini (a.k.a. vodkatini, but no one really calls them this…) and mellowing out to Willie Nelson.  Would that have changed anything? 

Now if I posted directions on how to make a perfect Grey Goose martini (shake it like you mean it) or if I explained why I prefer Elvis’ rendition of “Always on My Mind” to Willie’s, there would have at least been something for the average reader to virtually brush up against.  And besides, no one listens to Portishead anymore, even though their album Dummy was listed as number 419 on Rolling Stone’s top 500 albums of all time.  Of course, that was in 2003, so that’s old news, too.  And even though I read that “Always on My Mind” was originally performed by Brenda Lee, “I’m Sorry,” but I have never heard her version of it.  (She is still alive, by the way, and living in Nashville.)

While I was swilling wine, I never mentioned that Merlot, which is an offspring of Cab Franc and a sibling to Cabernet Sauvignon, is looked down on by some wine snobs.  Perhaps I don’t have a very discriminating palate (not to be confused with palette).  Or perhaps I like it because the grapes are best picked late in their season when they have that full-bodied fruity flavor that comes with a bit of over-ripeness, because I too, feel a certain delicious, full-bodied ripeness creeping upon me from time to time, especially in the autumn.

Of course, I am not all that picky about where my alcohol comes from.  I have never turned up my nose at vodka just because it was not made from potatoes.  But I know people who have.  I will even confess that I sometimes drink a martini straight up with no vermouth!  Oh the shame…

And while I was drinking my mediocre merlot, I failed to mention that Tara Vineyards wants to use another of my paintings as the label on one of their new reds.  The image is a 1964 red Chrysler 300 and is titled “Seeing Red.”  And while those who choose this wine because of the label’s image will probably never know that I originally cut out that car from a magazine on the day of my fifth birthday, or that I spent that evening cutting out red objects, symbolizing my rage over my parents forgetting that it was my birthday, it probably won’t matter to them either that recent theories with regard to color’s cognitive effects on the human mind note that the color red heightens the average human’s appetite for food and enhances sexual arousal. 

And while they are drinking their wine and listening to  the blues, they will never know that I have personally always been drawn to blue, a color that enhances creativity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ken Recalls a Rehab Romance

I. The first time Ken saw her, they were both engrossed in a pop culture exercise designed to help them free their minds. By tearing the pages of the magazines without a prescribed plan, without envisioning a preconceived product, they were supposed to be able to reveal their true desires and hidden fears. Indeed, Ken felt as though his frontal lobe had exploded, unleashing an ebony flood of primal longing, tossing him into an emotionally charged, flat spin from which he was unable to recover no matter how much he trusted in the laws of arithmetic.

II. Sensory perception was both skewed and heightened, and for the first time in months, he instinctively preferred the seemingly psychedelic colors and textures of the natural world to the harsh necessity of timepieces and shoe leather.

III. This was the first of many visits to rehab where the almost toneless voices offered reassurance. … if you’ve suffered, if you’ve experienced loss, you’re probably more open to understanding it and more comfortable talking about it and experiencing it…

IV. Above the droning persistence of the well-intentioned re-programmers, the chirping urgency of his desperate blood drew him toward the delectable creature. He dreamt of her day and night, imagining her as dormant, doll-like, and waiting to be animated by the certainty of his need.

V. But Barbie was not content to wait for him to make the first move. Her heart sought ease. Her body burned with curiosity.

VI. In life, as in literature, such longing to connect is often the first step along the sacred, creative journey. Rules? Margins? They are merely made to be broken.

VII. The clearer his mind became, the more he felt the energy surrounding him pointing him in her direction.

VIII. She pretended to be aloof, but she had never truly developed the ability to blend into her surroundings. She was in fact a simple mechanism, ready to fall, ready to be unlocked, ready to shun the predictable plaids and stripes of her strict self-regulation.

IX. Together they were learning to see the world as plastic, as a many-layered palimpsest anticipating the inevitability of transformation. They began to see themselves as unlimited by the boundaries they had been born into, hoping the complicated tune they played would become harmonious and that they would be able, at least for a while, to set aside the rough edged corruptions and the predetermining addictions that had miraculously brought them together.

NOTE:  This intermedia piece was created by tearing consecutive pages of Interview magazine and allowing them to remain intact along the spine.  I then scanned the images and Photoshopped them.  The text was inspired by bits of text that were visible on the magazine pages.  I posted it on Facebook a few months ago, and someone recently asked me to put it here on my blog so it could be viewed and read more easily as a whole.  So, here it is in all its snarkiness...  I think you can click on the individual images to get more detail.

Purging

Sometimes in poetry and in life I feel the need to blurt out darker images on my way to the light.  The poem below is an example of that process.  This is probably a good time to remind readers that there is a difference between the poet and the persona... just so everyone reading won't wonder why "I" had dreams of killing, and so I can distance myself somewhat from this poem.

 The painting above is untitled and is based on the railroad crossing arm at the intersection near my studio.  I don't guess it really has anything to do with the poem.  Even though I could probably come up with something if I think about it long enough.  The dots are very textural, almost 3D, as can be seen in the detail enlargement at the top.  (I think you can click on the image to see it almost life size.  And you can see some images in the dots.) 

ORIGINS

As a girl I dreamt of killing, of leaving

whole armies of men gasping, shuddering with desire

as I slinked past their ranks on my way to nowhere.

Of course, age taught me to take what I wanted,

and how to chop the leftovers into common pieces

to be devoured daily by thousands of ravens.

Never mind that every feast threatened

to unleash a strange longing within me

for the time before beauty began,

when women knew the secrets of flying,

could see the future, and built shelters

with stones freshly fallen from heaven.

More each day, I ached to be natural,

like the bark of a pine, the cool curl of a wave,

or the heady fragrance of gardenia wine.  And I want

tenaciously not to cling like a decorative vine

whose only function is to trail behind beauty

like the train on some bright fairy queen's gown.

Some days I transcend.  Then I float far above

in my own layer of atmosphere, not afraid of reentry,

because it is self through which I burn.

Some day I will arrive at the point where I was born,

and on that day I will understand--

starting from the inside is the way to learn love.

Laughing in the Face of Rejection

MONKEYS BY MISTAKE

(rejected six times by very fine journals...)

So, she was fully engaged

in this art of driving dangerously

without leverage

full speed

toward the lip

when she must have been taken by the shape

of the bug stew on the glass,

must have been trying to see through

when she went over

the bridge

(you know, there are rails

for a reason)

and the middle way

needs no shoulder, but that

means she couldn't afford a single

shuttering blink or

brink

sink

nothing.

Not a thing but ink, maybe a little white space

and a less than feeble attempt 

to make the place her own as her wheels spun desperately

through the air... but ah, what freedom without

friction without

diction without

conviction, no confusion within.

What irony it is to rely on

animation,  frame by frame,

fleshed out with subtle changes in the blanks

(no thanks to the artist)

No, it doesn't take a genius

to measure skid marks

to randomly write Shakespeare

to ride the lines, wasting valuable time

when THERE IS NO EDGE.

Without shoulders

the knees must be strong.

Flinging words at the page

I have run out of paintings to post with my poems.  I have a few that I haven't photographed, and I am working on a new one that is constructed of 1/8 inch wide strips of paper cut from the text in Interview magazine.  It may take me the rest of my life to finish it...  Meanwhile, two poems containing the word "fling..."

ANGELS TRAVELING TO THE HOMELAND

sometimes I long

to do nothing more exciting

than wear a hat, 

study the tax code,

and wait for visions.

sometimes I put on my pink pants,

daring to dance around the edges

of the social scene, managing to fling myself

through life as though through 

the temptation of a plate-glass door, 

demanding more

than the typical shatterproof woman

has any right to.

but behind my ribs,

behind the cage of these silent bones,

I am filled with dazzling words,

vibrant, colored threads of sound.

at night I am vocal,

tying random images together,

but in the daytime I bend,

and when I contemplate the end of being,

I forget taxes,

I forget pants,

I forget words.

STILL

Between the caring and the not caring

it is the fluctuation that makes life hard.

One sets the stage for disappointment,

while the other lets the necessary energy leak out

slowly, until movement becomes impossible.

Swinging like a pendulum surely winding down,

we eventually end up stymied, barely pulsing

near the center, in that static phase,

perhaps what we wished for 

when we craved contentment in the first place.

Full circles.  Empty hearts.

And we blame it on hormones,

and things that happened to us as children.

I've tried to build strength,

tried to brace myself against sudden drops in altitude.

But I seem to have a crack in my breastplate, 

a small opening where my good intentions seep out

quite unnoticed till I need them

with the desperation of a bleeding hand.

I feel as though I have written this before.

Nothing new to say, no revelations,

no new sensations,

yet I follow the string, and like song lyrics

thoughts flow down the page

willing themselves to become art.

Filled more with stop and start than meaning,

lines gain momentum until I notice their accumulation.

Then my hands try to be still.  Try to be still 

when you're churned up inside.  Not easy.

My hands flutter like birds.  They want to fly.

They want to leave their shadow ciphers on the ground

to be found centuries later and marveled over.

But these words are temporary

and I probably won't print them out.

I won't spring them on the world

anymore than I will fling myself over the edge.

I worry that such writing sounds like the whining

of a pitiful dog.  Devoid of beauty and voice,

only sentiment remains.  But sometimes it seems okay

to write about unimportant things,

like the way the sun shines 

on the girl's hair in the window of the coffee shop

and the fact that there stands a pyramid of oranges 

off to one side. 

Strange Leaps

Sometimes when I look back at poems I have written, I can't remember how my mind sprang spontaneously from one topic to another, usually somewhere near the middle of the poem. Perhaps this is what Ginsberg calls the "profound poetic leap."  Perhaps it is a form of noumenal thinking.  For example, in the poem below, I began the piece by considering subtle changes in the patterns of my life, changes in habits, processes, and relationships.  Then at the turn of the poem, it is as though my energy, in this case negative energy, can no longer be contained, and I must move into the external world to find meaning.

ACTS OF GOD AND OTHER MYSTERIES

I smoke cigars now,

but only once a month,

and I no longer eat meat at all.

I still carry my arousal around

like a succulent fruit

in a semi-permeable pouch

just south of my solar plexus,

and I think of you when it rains

like it rained today.

I don't spend much time

binding or unbinding my hair,

or enough time combing it

to cause even a small 

thunderstorm.

I have found myself

strangely alone

and craving lightning.

Your going has left an emptiness in me

bigger than my original self

and I have denied words

until they no longer spill down my arms.

I write now in shorthand, disabled

and unwilling to transcribe the details.

Let the leaves fall.

Let them say she was taken

on a Friday, full-faced

and plastered on the cover,

no sense denying the truth.

Let them say she could twirl

like a leaf weighted down by her stem.

"Did you see how she fell?"

Like a soft, Sunday paper, still folded,

predetermined as a morning crepe myrtle

still loaded with dew.  Still looking for wholes,

still as vulnerable and transparent as a grape,

let them say she was seedless

and without wings.

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

In this poem, the leap is not as sudden, with the action being more like a slow climb up a hill before the reader is dropped into a series of sensory observations, and  is at last left to contemplate whether love is as uncontrollable as death after all.

QUANTUM LEAP

From the side of the road where the ditch climbs

and grape vines cling to the rocks,

where fruit green and new sings the promise of red,

and weed tops quiver like summer corn,

I could tell it was a bad spill.

All those cars, barely damaged yet strangely askew,

bodies flung according to mangled aesthetics,

and that woman so horribly flat on the road.

I'd seen death... on the screen, in my dreams,

on the run, but never so close.

Still, I knew she was dead,

not just limp like some actress gone soft,

but adhered to the asphalt

like candle wax, cooled,

maintaining her contact with earth,

and except for the watchers

there to watch her let go,

all alone.

It's the details that do it.

Blue shorts.

Yellow shirt.

Slack hands.

Half afraid I would see the release,

I looked straight ahead.

One-way traffic

reflected in chrome.

Pave the way for the going.

Remember the ones who have gone.

You don't plan

to find yourself

breaking a lane marker,

washed by rain,

making a farce

of the NO PASSING sign.

So, I look at your hands,

fingers curled 'round the wheel.

At your confident grip,

not at odds, not at ease.  Not like me,

always hoping someday you'll let go 

and just reach, just for me.

How empty my chest feels.

How close the night.

Air so thick I can't breathe,

rain so near I can't see.

I have reached for your hands

past the fear.  So much smoother

than wiper blades slipping

I've shifted from side to side like rain on glass

until, determined not to hide

behind a veil of feigned control,

I reach, and breathe... again.

I dare to fly,

and breathe,

and spin.

I dare to hope you'll break my fall

when I let go.

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