'Lady of Green Fire,' 20.5cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", India inks, Waterman sepia ink, acrylic ink, gel pens, oil pastels, oil paint, watercolour pencils, Mokeskine sketchbook.
A Venus arising from a sea of leaves. A green garden goddess. Perhaps she is Spring welcoming the sun. Not fully clothed yet. Yes, I like that. This is as far as I got tonight; I'm needing some iridescent blue ink to make leaf motifs in the sky, and of course, it's late and the art store is closed.
'Lady of Green Fire/Greet the Sun,' 20.5cm x 29cm, 8" x 11.5", India inks, Waterman sepia ink, gel pens, oil pastels, watercolour pencils, Mokeskine sketchbook. [Detail]
What I did tonight... it's not finished, I don't think. I may want to create a mesh of leaves in the background in gold ink but don't have any.
This, and the last poem painting, Wing of Chrysalides, are, yes, mystical drawings.
[Above, taken indoors; below, scan before it was quite dry, or sprayed with an archival fixative. The colours in the one above are more accurate, but I like the softness of the scan. Click for larger size.]
'Wing of Chrysalides,' 2011, 20cm x 27cm, 8" x 10.5", India inks, oil paint, oil pastel, watercolour pencils, Moleskine sketchbook.
He stands between two worlds; he is about to leap. His wing, of chrysalises. In his hand, a green butterfly. He is nearly undifferentiated in the green as he straddles the blue where he is clear.
On him, glued, a piece of a shopping bill: 'Please retain receipt for purpose of completing the online survey.'
Another piece of the receipt, which hangs like a white fish, or perhaps only a rhythm.
Earlier version (scanned). You can see that I re-drew the figure who was sketched in here.
I wrote this prose poem in July 2007. Today I recorded it on my iPhone, a quiet reading, and added a track from the Music Text Composition Generator that I had entered this poem into. The poem is its own music, yes. I'm thinking to go back to the way I was recording before I got freaked out by, oh I don't know. A feeling that I was over-reaching prescribed bounds with layering voices, readings, allowing passion in my voice, that sort of thing.
Lacemaker
In a moment words will appear from which everything unravels.
Or begin with an explosion of lace.
Lace that is white, or whitened with the sun's steaming. Looped, twisted, braided threads, sewn with sharp needles, shaped like a cutwork of leaf veins in the sky. Finely-woven stitches, not broken or lost. Florals in white; sun-rises in white; waves in white. Spider webs of lace floating, an organic garden of cotton and linen and silk.
How many fine stitches I see everywhere.
Seams of perfect clothing, backs, shoulders, arms, waists, hips, the tight stitching of form-fitting shoes, the interlapping folds of purses. Fabric. Like skin. Woven tightly or loosely. Draped, tucked, formed, fitted. The soft velvet of the armchair in the cafe in which I sit, rounded, plush.
Colours in swathes, patterned. Different attire for different scenarios. Layers of warmth or mere covering if it's cold or hot. Whether a garment can open or close or covers in one swoop. Pieces of cloth fitted to hold the shape of the wearer. Clothes that adhere, drape, flow for sitting, walking, sleeping, dancing.
Looms and sewing machines and bobbins. Billions of miles of thread around the world. Stitching, this way of composing, holding together, covering ourselves, these metaphors, textual narratives.
What if I don't want to take a stance? What if I don't want to weave a garment out of these threads? A story out of all the stories filling my mind? If "Narratives, or more precisely plots, synthesize reality," (Snaevarr) can I exist without telling a tale of myself to you, or even to myself?
The flow of language like clothing, fashions that encase shaping how we present ourselves. Can we be naked without the speaking that stitches the world together, seam by seam, reams of bolts of cloth, patternings?
What was lost in the scrap lace pile, discarded, worn-out, old, the remnants, unraveled in the tears and rips, bleached out by wear?
How do I hem these words so they don't fray?
Shawls of Shetland lace are knitted first in the middle and then out to the edges and is so fine it can be pulled through a wedding ring. Can we marry ourselves to words that knit us to ourselves, each other, the world?
Social customs inform the attire of any given era and shape the body, but does the weave of worsted wool or soft cotton follow the curves and hollows of the skin and shape the wearer?
Or are the words we clothe ourselves with what we hide under?
Presentation and fashion. The way I compose myself every day; every piece of writing. Gathering myself in this historical time, a product of my age.
All the stitches of the world held in syntactical rhythms of meaning, social fabrics.
Is that why we want words to unfold in comfort from us? Wave-white words wedded. Words that aren't performative; that are dream-like, real.
Unraveling, I came to this, and I can't obscure it, truth, death, the words of the lover, and she who knits, knots, tapes, crochets, sews the world into being with her openwork, the lace maker.
I am testing Video Lightbox, a freeware application for home users. I have to add some code to my blog site html for the embeds to work as their site shows, but, if what I have done here works for you the way it does on my computer, I'm quite happy.
I've created two poetry albums so far. The first, Dance of the Solar Wind, was a collection of different pieces that had music accompaniment. The second, Starfire, was thematic, and I culled all my love poems and recorded them with music of musicians who share their work on Jamendo. For my next album, I thought to create a longer poem and find an album in the 40-60 min range to work with.
When José Travieso released his album, No More Faith, I thought, wow, this album travels all over the place musically, from neo-classical to minimalism to an anti-music bordering on noise in the last piece. The range of styles in this album appealed to me. I wrote to him asking his permission, and he said yes. Then I thought, it is a long album, what shall I write, it might be too much work to try to fit my poetry into the format of the tracks on the album, and I'll remain open to finding other music. But this album, No More Faith, has made a deep impact in my imagining psyche. Already two videos, with a third planned, and a voice recording.
The Video Lightbox test is to see if I can display the collection that is growing in little thumbnails that open into videos.
I've linked the images to the videos. The videos open on my computer in a new tab of full-screen browser size, which I prefer to YouTube's full screen option. They are set at 720px HD resolution, but you can change this once the player opens.
A reading of my poem, Wear White Paint for the Moon (2:53min);
music, the ninth track, 'Shinigami's Dream, No. 6,' on José Travieso's album, "No More Faith."
José has kindly created an 11:24min version of this track for a video poem I am planning.
(direct YouTube link): The Dancer's Backskin (1:30min);
music, the final track, 'Shinigami's Dream, No. 1,' on José Travieso's album, "No More Faith."
