painting

penumbral

penumbral s

almost a shadow
almost an echo between
vast uncertainties

hidden voices wandering
the uncharted borderlines

This year’s Wolf Moon comes with a penumbral eclipse.  For Frank Tassone’s #Haikai Challenge #120, and also linked to OLN on dVerse, hosted by Grace.

penumbral close up s

This is a watercolor with a moon photo collaged on top.

I’m going to be absent from posting for awhile, though I will try to check in with what everyone’s doing.  I’m moving into a small temporary space, putting most of my stuff in storage, and hoping to move into a permanent home before 2020 is through.  I won’t have a drawing table and not sure how many supplies will fit into the space, but I’ll be back to doing more work of some kind as soon as I can.

stormstruck

stormstruck grid s

stormstruck magnetic

It’s clear the Oracle is feeling the world’s distress.

stormstruck close up 1s

I had a dream recently about weaving paper.  I’ve done it before, but in the dream I was using wax paper left over from monoprints (I’m low tech in my technique) and weaving painted paper through it.  I’ve been saving the wax paper images and wondering what to do with them.  I used newspaper that had been underneath my watercoloring (protecting the drawing table) and cut it into strips.  I like the interaction of layers, papers, and paint.

 

The newspaper happened to be the front pages with headlines about the Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018.  The world seems to be falling ever deeper and deeper into a vast hole.

stormstruck close up 2s

why was
the bare sky
crying raindrunk
wind whispering
with the shadow language
of raw rusted light

Poem up at The Ekphrastic Review

salome s

My poem “personifications” is posted along with the others selected for the challenge artwork “Salome” by Henri Regnault on The Ekphrastic Review today.

Regnault’s piece is well known but not typical of artists’ interpretations of the Biblical story (which has been altered in our consciousness by time and retelling also).  Most painters choose to show either the dance, perhaps accompanied by a disembodied head, or a close up of a woman with a head on a platter.  Here we have a woman, sitting, with a platter and a sword but no head.  Is it supposed to be empowerment?

salome top s

My collage, too, follows neither common narrative.  I knew I had a dark female figure in the collage box that I wanted to use, and in the search for her I pulled out other elements that seemed to fit with her and my poem.

salome bottom s

I always thought the story of Salome was just another example of humans refusing to take responsibility for their own actions and desires.  None of the behavior, certainly, merits imitation.  Blind obedience is just as bad as passing the buck (see: current world “leaders” and their followers…)

Once again, thanks to Review editor Lorette C. Luzajic for selecting my poem and supporting the call and response of poetry and art.  You can read all the poetry and see the original artwork here.

I also really like Redon’s Salome, below.

salome redon

 

into itself

into itself s

winter leaves, overlapping
 with cold wind, rain,
clouds that permeate

each every day
 footsteps too heavy
to follow another

enclosed in lethargy,
 the hours devoid
of song, stagnant

from here to anywhere,
 held in pause–
each day a tunnel

searching for openings–
 starsunmoon
glowing

A quadrille for Lillian at dVerse, using the word glow.

into itself close up 1s

I always like to photograph my art in natural light, but it’s so dark here today, I also did some with the overhead light on.  It gives everything a yellow tone, and doesn’t show the subtle shifts in the color any better.  Maybe they’re too subtle.

 

 

all directions lead to the center

all directions 2s

Like the moon, I am an echo, repeating
 the gravities of my orbit–
anchored inside by both light and dark,
circling me, refacing me

The gravities of my orbit
 give me direction but not location–
circling me, refacing me,
scattering my stardust into the void

Given direction but not location,
 like Janus, I am always between–
scattering my stardust into the void
with no before or after

Like Janus I am always between–
 I am not looking for eternity
with no before or after,
life is always right here and right now

I am not looking for eternity
 to position me in a narrative–
life is always right here and right now–
its beginning and end are unknowable

I am positioned in a narrative
 of patterns I don’t understand–
its beginning and end are unknowable–
I dream of circumvention

Following patterns I don’t understand,
 anchored inside by both light and dark,
I dream of circumvention–
like the moon I am an echo, repeating

all directions 2 close up s

 

My second pantoum for the dVerse theme of echo.

all directions 1 close up s

More art from the archive.  Still going in mystifying circles.

all directions 1s

 

Hologram

hologram 1s

Have you listened to the night sky
 opening yourself wide
to let it echo through you?
Have you tasted the stars?

Opening yourself wide
 have your eyes become mirrors?
Have you tasted the stars,
your veins glowing?

Have your eyes become mirrors
 of infinite silences,
your veins glowing,
drunk with the darkness

of infinite silences?
 Have you been pulled,
drunk with the darkness,
into luminous trajectories ?

Have you been pulled,
 revisiting the returning
of luminous trajectories,
forever somewhere else?

Have you revisited the returning–
 let it echo through you
forever as somewhere else?
have you listened to the night sky?

hologram 1 close up s

This is the first of two similar pantoums I composed for Merril’s dVerse echo theme.  The art is from the archives.

hologram 2 close up s

As you may have noticed, I like the repetition and echoing in the pantoum form, and the way it circles back on itself.  You may have also noticed I often write about the night sky, the stars, and the moon, often assisted by the Oracle.  Merril and Jane, who are also acquainted with the Oracle, told me not to read their poems until I had composed my own, but I’m guessing stars appear in theirs somewhere too.

hologram 2s

Of course stars echo in light!