Poetry – Page 15 – red paper boat

Remember Me

June 21, 2006January 8, 2016 Shelly

I finished the second season of Little House over the weekend, and started on the third. One episode contained a funeral scene in which a sweet little poem was read. It reminded me of a song, but even though the lyrics and melody were on the tip of my tongue, I couldn’t identify which one. It nearly drove me to distraction.

Then, this morning as I was packing my lunch, it came to me. Class, please compare and contrast:

Remember me with smiles and laughter,
for that is how I will remember you all.
If you can only remember me with tears,
then don’t remember me at all.
— Julia Sanderson, Remember Me
Little House on the Prairie season 2

And now, Mr. Cuddlygoth:

Treasure, by The Cure
She whispers
Please remember me
When I am gone from here
She whispers
Please remember me
but not with tears
Remember I was always true
Remember that I always tried
Remember I loved only you
Remember me and smile
For it’s better to forget
Than to remember me
And cry

Remember I was always true
Remember that I always tried
Remember I loved only you
Remember me and smile
For it’s better to forget
Than to remember me
And cry

Now, as much as I’d love to think of CuddlyGoth Robert Smith as a closet Little House fan (and I dearly would, just for the absurdity factor), I’m having a small amount of trouble picturing it. More likely, both Robert Smith and the writer of that Little House episode were both inspired by the Christina Rosetti poem, Remember.

Remember, by Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Art, Artist Books, Poetry

Hemp Bound Journal: Three Things (reworked)

January 24, 2006October 12, 2015 Shelly

I really didn’t like the way this page originally looked. It was nothing but silver, which worked better conceptually than visually. The only parts I ended up keeping were the coin, mirror, and key. Everything else was gessoed and collaged over. It’s not perfect, but it’s a huge improvement.

collage (fragments from old patent book, key, coin, and mirror fragment) with oil pastel, Neocolors II water soluble wax crayons, instant coffee, gesso, and india ink
8 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches

Three things
Are not four things.
Three things
Are sharper than knives,
Silent famines of thought that
Shine silver like moons in the dark.

Three things are perfectly cold
By intent
By design
By the deadliest scheme.

Three things are ancient wheels
That turn in the night,
Near misses and reflections.

Three things
Are stitching thought to flesh to deed,
Bone drawing blood slickened sinew.

Three things are problematic monsters
Ministering, waiting, and watching.

Art, Paintings, Poetry

Who Can See the Wind?

January 8, 2006October 8, 2015 Shelly

Who Can See the Wind?
by Christina Rossetti

Who can see the wind?
Neither I nor you
But when the leaves are trembling
The wind is passing through.

Who can see the wind?
Neither you nor I,
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

This weekend has been sunny, warm, and generally gorgeous–a welcome contrast to last week’s typical Winter in Indiana dreariness. It’s windy, though, so even though it’s in the mid-50sF, it feels a little brisker than it actually is. Yesterday, we had bright blue skies, but today, even though the sun is out, it’s hazy and the sky is a pale, bleached blue. But, the wind…! It\’s howling and gusting and thundering, by turns. I swear, it’s more solid than not, so that you almost feel as if you could see it[1].

Anyway, no new art today, at least not yet. Perhaps later. After a four-day weekend, most of it spent hacking up bits of lung tissue, I realize that I have had precious little in the way of actual ass-sitting. Sure, I’ve talked about it, but the sitting itself has actually yet to materialize. So, maybe, that’s what I’ll spend the rest of the day doing.

Speaking of not sitting on my behindermost, I did finally manage to finish mucking out the laundry room yesterday. Even though the stuff destined for the Mission is still in there, it’s taking up about half the space it did pre-mucking. I can actually get to the washer without falling over things. The point of the exercise was that the dryer fairy may, at any point, decide to visit. I wanted to make sure I could actually get the old dryer out, before she arrived. I even pulled it out and cleaned behind it, so that I won’t have to do that when we swap out machines. (You would not believe the assortment of junk I found back there!)

________________________________________
[1] I had a book of poems when I was little, that included several by Christina Rossetti. I’ve always loved this one, in particular. It wasn’t until a college art history class on the Pre-Raphaelites that I realized she was the sister of that Rossetti.

The Pre-Raphaelites were an odd little group. Ruskin, and artist, poet, and critic, was shocked and appalled to discover, that women–or, at least, his wife–had pubic hair. Or so the story goes. Apparently, he had this rude awakening on his wedding night, which disturbed him so much the marriage was not consummated. I’m not sure I buy that story, as someone who had spent his life in the art world, around artists and models, should have known better. True, it was traditional to portray women with pre-pubescent, hairless nether bits, but still, surely he’d seen a real, live woman in her altogether before[2]?

Okaythen, class dismissed!

[2] This total and complete non-sequitur brought to you by NyQuil: The sneezing, stuffy head, sore throat, hallucinogenic, where-the-hell-is-my-brain cold medicine.

Art, Collage, Crankypantsing, Journals, Ladybusiness, Poetry

Hemp Bound Journal

January 6, 2006October 5, 2015 Shelly

PWT

This page was an off-shoot of the discussion about the phrase “poor white trash.” I finally spoke up, and called the original poster on her demeaning comments. After having gone to great lengths to describe what she meant by “poor white trash,” and her qualifying how she is supperior to “them,” she had the nerve to reply that she hadn’t really meant it as a slur, because, hey, it’s all a matter of semantics. Um, no, it’s not semantics, not when you’ve precisely qualified and quantified your position. She made a lame attempt at claiming that there were all sorts of meanings for the word “trash” and that “poor” is a state of mind. Neither of those points, even if they were true in this context, addresses the fact that she’d spent umpty words describing a certain group of people, and how they are inferior to her. I had to laugh at her parting shot, though, that she’d suffered discrimination, too, when she was younger, because she had been called a poor, little rich girl. Now, that takes brass ovaries!

Because I thought the “it’s just semantics” defense was a laughable cop-out, I decided to consult Mr. Roget for alternate suggestions. The column spacing sucks, which is one of those things that unreasonably vexes me. I’ll probably add something else to the far right margin of the left-hand page at a later date, just for visual balance

I’d totally forgotten that the phrenology model was on that page, because the coat of gesso makes it blend into the background. It used to be thought that you could judge a person’s character by the structure of their skull. This theory was used as the basis for racial discrimination, as well as for the theory that you could tell just by looking at some people that they were wrong ‘uns. I guess some prejudices die hard, eh?

Backbone & The Direction of Last Things

Letter from a Muse

Vessels

No matter how much I think it’s wrong to kill another living being–and I do–I cannot get past the fact that we do not legally require one person to save another’s life. It makes no more sense to mandate that a woman must carry a baby to term than it does to force people to give over their kidneys or bone marrow or livers for transplants. I can certainly choose to be an organ donor, but I cannot be forced into it. But, some people think it’s okay to force a woman to carry a child to term against her will.

Art, Artist Books, Collage, Poetry

Hemp Bound Journal

December 25, 2005October 5, 2015 Shelly

I uploaded a couple more pages from the hemp bound journal. One is kind of meh, but I like the poem that accompanies it. The other is visually more interesting, but the poem isn’t as good. That’s about par for the course. The poems are part of the Creation Myth series I’ve been playing with.

This journal was a great idea, but it ended up being a royal pain in the arse to work in. The pages are nice and heavy, which I like, but the brown color gives me a mental block. I keep pulling out the gesso and waxed paper to try to cope with the unending brown. I wonder why that bothers me, but white paper doesn’t?

A Question of Ghosts
December 22, 2005

If we were soaked in the practice
Mechanisms of truth
Lost in the work
Sanded and rectified
Stuck tight to what seemed fitting
What was lately manipulated
Encouraged
Then killed,If, all around us
The ghosts were deserting,
Would we become gods
Woe takers and lightning makers
The careful sculptors of bones and
Guardians of the lesser portion?

Three Things
December 6, 2005

Three things
Are not four things.
Three things
Are sharper than knives,
Silent famines of thought that
Shine silver like moons in the dark.

Three things are perfectly cold
By intent
By design
By the deadliest scheme.

Three things are ancient wheels
That turn in the night,
Near misses and reflections.
Three things
Are stitching thought to flesh to deed,
Bone drawing blood slickened sinew.
Three things are problematic monsters
Ministering, waiting, and watching.

Art, Collage, Paintings, Poetry

The Tree of Mercury

June 14, 2005October 12, 2015 Shelly

The Tree of Mercury
oil on canvas
48 x 67 inches

I started this painting a couple of years ago and didn’t completely finish it. It’s ginormous, so physically maneuvering it is a little tricky. Since I’ve been rephotographing and measuring everything, I thought I should dig this out and try to shoot it, too. That was an, um, adventure.

I love the twisty, viney bits and have based a few other pieces on it.

The Keeping Tree
5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches
collage on paper, with pennies, cork, hat pin, and yearbook photos

To Blossoms
9 1/2 x 12 inches
collage on paper, with 35 mm film, dried ironweed flowers, and yearbook photo

To Blossoms
by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here a-while,
To blush and gently smile;
And go at last.

What, were ye born to be
An hour or half’s delight;
And so to bid good-night?
‘Twas pity Nature brought ye forth,
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne’er so brave:
And after they have shown their pride,
Like you, a-while;–they glide
Into the grave.

We’ve had on and off clouds all day, but it’s been dry. That’s due to change soon, though. A line of storms is heading our way. I looked out a little bit ago and saw that the sky had darkened. After the cloud had passed, I took a photo of it. The sun was in the west and the cloud in the east. It’s amazing what a change in perspective will do. While overhead, it turned everything black, but with the sun on it, it looks soft and benign.

And, an instant review. Soy Fusion’s Matcha Green Tea is excellent. It sounds kind of gross (soy milk and green tea), but it’s nummy stuff. Then again, I love lots of soy milk in my tea, so this isn’t much of a stretch.

Art, Collage, Poetry

Epitaph for Eula Strange

April 14, 2005December 29, 2015 Shelly

watercolor, antique curtain fragment, metallic wax, bone, Gepe mount, yearbook photo, and ink on paper

Epitaph for Eula Strange
I dread for me
living one mute day every time
an allusive and subtle communication
an ever present affliction
clutching to me
an old thought to gnaw on.
I am afraid
Out of worth
without words
caught and reduced and disorganized
like dreaming of sleep
and the taste of dry bones.

This is another of the watercolor collages I’ve been working on. I added a bit of antique Swiss dot material from a curtain that belonged to Pinkie Gray. She’s a watercolor artist who lived in Metamora. The jaw bone I found along the river in Muncie while walking my dog. The photograph is from another old yearbook.

Poetry

Letter from a Muse

February 21, 2005 Shelly

I, drawing letters to twist thoughts
letters to feed the slackening storm
letters sewn on the sleeve of a good man
letters to direct the dissection of stone
I, drawing letters to define and inform
letters to hone the slivering bone
letters drawn from an unobjectionable pleasure
letters to tether the thought to the form.

And, he imagines the place where the letters began
farther away now and not by his hand,
For I was a fire in some clever imagination
but I, drawing letters from what I could find,
I thought of the ideal: six things I did bind
made of felt, made of bone, made of water and thread,
made of hide and of wind and of all things dead.

Poetry

The Star Maker

February 15, 2005 Shelly

The Star Maker speaks volumes, in Greek
a wise man with rational principles,
inventing new methods for calculating prime numbers
a man of ethics and ellipses,
the Star Maker studies orbits,
dreams of satellites, planets, and comets
and mapping the sky.

The Star Maker, alchemist and geomancer
binds thought to water,
weaves halos of tin,
and summons bone from air
the Star Maker
speaks in circles of his theories of life,
of gravitational pull
and the swell of the waxing full moon.

The Star Maker, seer and cunning deceiver
divines portents from meteors and scatters of light,
ceaselessly searches for a unified theory of life
the Star Maker, keeper and monster slayer
watches over memory,
haunts dreams, never sleeps
the Star Maker thinks the unthinkable thing
and keeps the unknowable hidden from sight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I guess I’m in the midst of a poetry writing binge. I recently pulled out my book of Homeric hymns, which is probably what spawned it. I love the Homeric hymns. I’ve always envied the the ability to know one’s gods so intimately that they are an unquestioned part of everyday life; that the gods could be as real and familiar as one’s friends and relations. I’ve never had that sort of faith.

I also envy people who have created their own mythologies. It’s not that I don’t have recurring threads, thoughts, and dreams, but until now I’ve never bothered to try to gather them together give them tangible form.

Poetry

Portia Dreaming

February 12, 2005 Shelly

Day after day she forgets
the long run
the thief, stealing from her
rain drops spilling down glass
not lost, not sold, not given
the compass was hope for the scrubbing
How do you touch the dark?
Nasturtiums and a large bag of knitting and felt
but they are of charm and she would never see red
my heart, Portia to an artist in training,
remembers
the bone of a thought that was hid long ago
in a place only dreaming could know.