Thursday, July 30, 2009

PLAQUE FOR EMILY

Sunday, July 26, 2009
















FROM SLOW POKE'S HEART THROUGH MY FUMBLING SPASTIC FINGERS










Slow Poke Bill asked me to do Cami's portrait in watercolor for her birthday. I ended up doing a couple of them, proving that a pretty woman is far more difficult to portray than the irascible rascals of Phoenix Motorcycle Riders Group. I ended up doing four paintings and a graphite portrait, each one saying something different to me, although they were taken from the same pose. I'll probably only post one on the sidebar, taking a poll from those who check them out to see which is the most popular. So e-mail me, leave a comment and let me know which one you like the most (red, close-up, only brown, more standard). They are all about 9" x 12". Thanks! Happy Birthday Cami!










VALIANT



I'm afraid that you'll look too long at the
stranger. Whether it be the bartender with the
long hair and beard, the bag lady pushing her
cart, the beat up Valiant, the curious page
from a dirty magazine that's lying in the
street. I'm afraid that you'll want to
rearrange the furniture. Or, worse yet, do it
while I'm gone.

Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the
night and listen to you breathe. I'll listen
to it, pacing my breath with yours. Listening
so long that I am startled when you move and
then wonder what it was that suddenly made you
aware that you were uncomfortable.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

PROFILE OF A BLACK WOMAN

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Marriage-

Animals react differently in a zoo.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

NUDE FROM ASHES

Sunday, July 12, 2009

CRITIC


Hemingway? I ask, she states was just a drunk
and Kerouac to her was just bebop scum
Shaking my head, not wanting to push it further,
Jesus, I sigh,
she quips
-Just a martyr.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

HER DREAM, COMMUNAL
for, and because of, LMK


My good friend had a dream in which a person she knew to be deceased said to her,
"God's timing is all knowing."
She wondered what that meant.

Then I wondered, did the spirit know that she would tell me this dream and the
message was really meant for me?
I wondered what that meant.

Then it occurred to me, that if the spirit knew her that well, it must have known
me well enough to also know that I would post the dream here,
-and the message was ultimately meant for you - now.


GERMAN CHIP CARVING


This was an exercise in zen and patience. Each chip took three cuts to make and all done with a single knife, lid and all four sides. Box measures 11"x5.5"x3" Basswood

Tuesday, July 7, 2009


GUNTHER 9 X 12 watercolor

Monday, July 6, 2009

BLOWN FUSE


My father's

bull mastiff fists
Jaws clenched around the collar of my shirt
The wooden legs of the kitchen chairs, running and tripping
My legs strike the table and it grumbles aside

My mother's

basket of hot clothes and towels, just out of the dryer,
watches from a corner of the room
A strangled sleeve hangs over the edge.
Her slow voice, just as wrinkled, smoothing his name

My body is

wrangled backwards towards the shuttered windows
Sunlight filters through dusty splintered wood and warms my face
The electricity of the moment, accelerated, is still familiar
So my muscles relax, eyes softly close, and surrender to the wait

My brother's

frozen figure in the archway, paralyzed from the voltage,
unable to let go, rigid, shrieks with a piercing howl
of a heart impaled, collapses to his knees,
-the blown fuse that breaks the current.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

A LIFE, ONLY

Remembered at the memorial service.
Forgotten until we see his widow again.
Six uninteresting things that make me happy:

1. Going to bed when the sun is coming up.
2. Staying awake until that time.
3. Restaurants that have coarse ground pepper on the table.
4. Rocky Road ice cream that has FORMED marshmellows instead of that non-committal white swirly goop.
5. Twilight transition in late Spring, Summer and early Fall ONLY.
6. An infant to a toddler who smiles back at me because they know that I know that they still remember what heaven is like.

Friday, July 3, 2009

CRUISERS

The night is hot and fragrant like the smell of an oasis
sweet like jasmine climbing over every wall
and the jukebox blaring be-bop
and the lovers on the rooftops
drink in nectar
bodies trembling and enthralled

There's a promise in my pocket
a stolen picture from a locket
swiped from Save-On off of Lincoln Boulevard
Her face looked so familiar
but from where I couldn't figure
so I freed the photo and left the locket in the cart

I strolled out toward the parking lot
playing down my excitement and the fear of getting caught
zig-zagging through the cars in case I was followed from the store

Leave the diamonds for the losers
like spent asphalt behind cruisers
Hallelujah. I'm not alone anymore.
POST OFFICE

Arrested coming out of the post office after mailing your letter and the rats could smell my words still on my collar, but under my sleeve was the one thing that they didn't plan on. Just as the man in the suit from Vice was reading me my rights, an officer grabbed my hand and brought it around my back. I turned, releasing that hand at the wrist. Another one stripe grabbed my shoulder and I gave him my whole arm, separate. There was no blood, no snap, just a sigh. The detective jostled back to the car and snatched the radio for backup. The cop who tried to cuff me was shooing my hand into a corner by the door of the post office. The hand looked confused, the same look as it had when writing your letter. The other officer just let my arm fall - then grabbed me in a headlock. He wrenched it under his arm and I let go of the face, the wince and grimace you no longer see. Imagine. I stood straight up, my head apart from my body now. A news van pulled up. I walked my torso around to the front of the policeman holding my head. He screamed and my head flew into the air, spiraling, as the detective tackled my body from behind - severing me at the waist. My head landed in the rubbery shrubbery near the officer trying to corral the hand. I wiggled my jaw feverishly and fell out of the bushes onto the sidewalk, faced away from the scene. All that I could see was my legs running up the street. I flashed on what you wrote about how I should move to New York. More grist for my mill. That was their direction. Doors slammed and there was a scampering of feet that sounded like a stampede with my ear to the concrete. I saw my left hand scurry around to the front of my face and hook my mouth with the index finger, rotating my head on my ear to face the scene where I could see that there was a lot of commotion about my dismembered parts. My upper body was flapping around, rocking in spasms. The News was asking the detective, "Which part do you arrest? The hand for writing, the head for thinking, or the heart -"
-The detective silenced him by reaching into his cot and pulling out his .45. My hand was wedging under my cheek like a scared salamander under a rock. My fingers flipped my face, my head rolling down the sidewalk. I saw the mail truck, like a kaleidoscope, pulling out of the drive. My letter was inside.
My head stopped.
The driver smiled.
His hands turned the wheel.
You'll get me - whole.
I heard
only
one
shot.
HELL

The web is broken, Charlotte's dead.
Hell is the absence of all things familiar.
OMEGA

To mark the finality of the end,
I may only get:
One crayon.
To chose one word.
To make one movement.
One note from a single tone flute.

-and it has got to be enough.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

VIRGO BLADES

I found them on the floor in the back of my car yesterday-
cleaning out the empties.
I recognized them as yours because,
just like you,
they were practical
and efficient-
and very hard to hold
as they have an edge
on both sides.
And only Virgo blades
could cut the heart
and the wrist
at the same time.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009


A bunch of wood carvings.