approaching greyscale
this blurred journey
slips
down streets
not only nameless but
soundless, dislocated
all the rhythms are abbreviated–
throbbing, stagnating
in a silent cinematic slow motion–
a composite of fragments
neither awake nor asleep–
a perpetual absence
of who
what when where
why
For dVerse, where Linda has given us the quadrille word of slip, and earthweal, where Brendan asks, “What comes next?”
Broadway is dark now, vacant. The only lights to be seen shine out of hastily abandoned office windows, or from traffic lights that change for invisible crowds.
Makeshift stages shrink to fit into screens, the audience now virtual. Dreams stand still, waiting between hope and grief.
dancing voices pause–
forever on the verge of
opening to spring
Billy Joel wrote this song in 1976, inspired by the NY Daily News Headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead”. And in 2020 we have a parallel line: “Trump to New York: Drop Dead”.
But we’ll be back.
For dVerse Haibun Monday, hosted by Kim. We’re thinking about Mondrian’s ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie‘.
Inspired by Phil Gomm’s “Metropolis” prompt, I’ve revived Headline Haiku for a New York pandemic collage. I originally did a series of these current event newspaper artworks on methodtwomadness, the blog I do with Nina (who is on an extended break), but I haven’t done one in a long time.
It also fits my current supply situation–most everything I own is in storage, and I do not have many collage materials in my temporary apartment. But I do get the NY Times delivered, and I cut them up for what I’m working on as needed.
I took two of the obituary pages from last Sunday’s paper and collaged it with images and headline haiku collected from the last month’s papers.
(read the story accompanying this headline here)
My city is hurting. It’s uncertain when anything will return and what form it will take.
But the lifeblood of the city is its people, and something will always grow and thrive among them.
I spent my childhood in Ohio and Maryland but I never put roots down in either place. NYC is my hometown. And aside from one apartment, I’ve always lived and worked either on, or within walking distance, of Broadway.
For the last 10 years, I’ve been able to walk to Yankee Stadium from my residences…and many’s the time I’ve started home to the accompaniment of Frank Sinatra after a game.
New York has been a city of immigrants for its entire existence. And it will continue to draw strength from its diversity as it comes back to life.
New York, New York…a metropolis in which to imagine a new world.
Black Beauty
leaves behind a trail
of tears, a
synthesis
of dazzling blue fire and the
mad Czar’s purple sword
Tender and
true, Aurora laughs,
dances in
the golden
acres, wandering among
old Jacob’s cattle
The Purple
Queen calls on Jack Ice
to render
wizardly
mutations—lazy housewife
into Reine des Glaces
A bit of fun using the seed names suggested by Sarah at dVerse in a shadorma chain for Colleen’s #TankaTuesday with synonyms for harmony and transition. Perfect words for a garden!
audiences
remixed up
moving as one
Trying to draw Little Richard as a young man made me realize just how beautiful he was beyond the exuberant music. I couldn’t do justice to the fine bone structure of his face, the eyes that had so much to say.
As his obituary in the NY Times pointed out, one of the early criticisms of rock and roll was that it increased integration between people of different races. Little Richard crossed many boundaries–racial, social, gendered–opening doors that had long been locked.
Perhaps empathy plants its seeds in the music that rocks our souls. Time to get up and dance!
Who will
carry the end
back to the beginning?
who will remember the lost, re
locate
the disappeared? Who will fill life
with futures, release those
fragile wings to
the skies?
I decided to do my May grid and a butterfly cinquain for both the NaPoWriMo Day 30 prompt, “something that returns”, and Colleen’s #Tanka Tuesday prompt theme, chosen by Elizabeth from Tea and Paper, “the day after”.
When Nina and I first started blogging at memadtwo, one of my recurring themes was endangered species. I posted twice (here and here) about the Monarch Butterfly, and wrote in one post:
Most people know that monarchs migrate from the United States and Canada to central Mexico to hibernate in winter. This can mean a trip of nearly 3,000 miles!
Between 2012 and 2013 the amount of butterflies who wintered in the Mexican forest decreased by 40%. The forest habitat itself is disappearing as a result of illegal logging. But the extreme weather conditions of the last few years, due to climate change, have also caused lower hatching rates. Another factor is the loss of milkweed plants, the primary food source for monarchs, killed by agricultural herbicides.
Perhaps the coronavirus will provide these beautiful creatures with some respite from human destruction.
When looking for music about migration I remembered Steve Earle’s song. Monarchs remind us that borders are only the lines that we ourselves choose to draw.
Thanks to Maureen Thorson and all the participants in NaPoWriMo 2020 for helping me to travel all over the world and creating bridges that reached far beyond the walls and borders of our politics and our forced isolation.
Who
you seem to be complete
a smile like ripe fruit
What
you are everything
a palace and a simple path
When
reduced to molecules of grey light
sewn with stars
Where
a valley and a clear mountain stream
a tree growing inside a fabulous beast
Why
you are beyond and over
crowding me with vastness
How
newborn and ancient
an omen only just imagined
Withal
you take my hand unlayer
my heart open me and fly
Being allergic, I am petless to answer the NaPoWriMo Day 29 prompt, but my dreams are full of creatures of all kinds.
Patti Griffin wrote this wonderful song for her dog.
