At the road’s curve, an undeveloped lot
our motley cohort christened “the jaggers”.
That’s where our wild possibilities were set
to messy tangles of weed and briar.
Come spring, our mouths and fingers spotted stain
proving berries pleasures by the bleeding.
Come winter, snowballs parceled the terrain
with kingdoms won and lost to annexing.
Nothing that flourished there clung to order;
yet owner proved indifferent to that
knowing adult hands could alter its state.
But we were children and we did not see
what natural choices would disappear
in developments of maturity.
Fourth of July (Video)
Here's an audio recording (disguised as a video) of Fourth of July. The image, as usual, is one of my brother's. He went through a period where he wanted to expose the geometry of the frame and fabric underlying the painted image. The artifice revealing its skeleton. I always perceived the exact opposite: underneath the outer skeleton of the painting lies a deeper painting....
Fourth of July
I. The View from Brooklyn
We tenants ascend in tune tonight
coughing and laughing, squeaking and scuffing
round around stairwells, always rising
to congregate and murmur high aloft,
stubbly silhouettes on rooftops
that await the spectacle of fires’ start.
Nine o’clock. Night has dragged out her notions
pinned up her stars, embroidered the city’s outline,
smoothed out the ebon set of her threads.
And beneath her slip, two thighs of water
the thickset Hudson, the pale East river
on them, the scows that suspend her garters.
II. The Exaltations of Fire
We hear a tssss—initial hiss and crack:
watch flickering flare, white which breaks
in inverse of normal light and thunder.
Nor cower, but climb to vigor and fury:
blue and gold showers, scarlet flurry
silver spatter, oohs and ahhs accompany
apprehending each species of sizzle and spark
flames within flames, the patterning stark
till retina prickles with punctuation marks.
Burn, out of blackness, is becoming:
is feeling, is making, alike by such blazing-
the raking of substance from nowhere.
And our powers are more than mere delight
imagining themselves so radiant
that by such imaginings, they’re able to create.
III. The Tribune of Works
On and on their sudden, dashing ambient:
through freewheeling and fervid tumult
to forms that in time begin to repeat
Each of them fades, as if sunk in a well,
having lived to the last, consuming themselves
made to witness their own going still.
Now the littered light of latecoming squadrons
illumes a spreading roil of smoke and plume
obscuring the crests of Manhattan.
Works too much themselves to be charged as metaphors,
shimmers shorn of death and nightmare:
it is enough that they lived and once were
nor terror, nor the ignorant repetition
nor the vitiated innocence, again and again
only this—truncated, cut short of their vision
till it whelms old scars of sad’s propinquity
and overlays the tall, trumpeting finale
like a briar crown: crimson and bloody.
We tenants ascend in tune tonight
coughing and laughing, squeaking and scuffing
round around stairwells, always rising
to congregate and murmur high aloft,
stubbly silhouettes on rooftops
that await the spectacle of fires’ start.
Nine o’clock. Night has dragged out her notions
pinned up her stars, embroidered the city’s outline,
smoothed out the ebon set of her threads.
And beneath her slip, two thighs of water
the thickset Hudson, the pale East river
on them, the scows that suspend her garters.
II. The Exaltations of Fire
We hear a tssss—initial hiss and crack:
watch flickering flare, white which breaks
in inverse of normal light and thunder.
Nor cower, but climb to vigor and fury:
blue and gold showers, scarlet flurry
silver spatter, oohs and ahhs accompany
apprehending each species of sizzle and spark
flames within flames, the patterning stark
till retina prickles with punctuation marks.
Burn, out of blackness, is becoming:
is feeling, is making, alike by such blazing-
the raking of substance from nowhere.
And our powers are more than mere delight
imagining themselves so radiant
that by such imaginings, they’re able to create.
III. The Tribune of Works
On and on their sudden, dashing ambient:
through freewheeling and fervid tumult
to forms that in time begin to repeat
Each of them fades, as if sunk in a well,
having lived to the last, consuming themselves
made to witness their own going still.
Now the littered light of latecoming squadrons
illumes a spreading roil of smoke and plume
obscuring the crests of Manhattan.
Works too much themselves to be charged as metaphors,
shimmers shorn of death and nightmare:
it is enough that they lived and once were
nor terror, nor the ignorant repetition
nor the vitiated innocence, again and again
only this—truncated, cut short of their vision
till it whelms old scars of sad’s propinquity
and overlays the tall, trumpeting finale
like a briar crown: crimson and bloody.
Gemkitty's Facebook fan page is up and the number of fans is growing like kudzu--w00t! Let the semiprecious revolution begin!
Carnival of Moods as Miniature Animals (Video)
Carnival in the usual video (really audio with still) format. Another of my brother's series of Polaroid paintings; unlike the last I posted, this one is not anachronistic. He just really had a thing for "crazy" animals. This one is a crazy dog.
Carnival of Moods as Miniature Animals
Courage
I should lionize
breath that flees the lung’s device
no routine roaring, but proof of life.
Melancholy
The birds mass
flight for
autumn’s
through the leaves.
I am torn
by the dying that
never
made some soar.
Delight
So many leaping beauties!
My heart gazelles over strands
of old gloom.
Bewilderment
This ape beneath the skin
beating on pots and pans
sounds a better rhythm
than the man.
Remorse
Lickingly content, the bear of hindsight
lumbers from his wintry hibernation:
bent and bloody in his brute bite
the should-have of past miscalculation.
Despair
It’s something to encounter all your hurt,
immaculate and snowy as an owl
gazing upon you from beneath its cowl
unblinking eyes as golden as they are inert.
I should lionize
breath that flees the lung’s device
no routine roaring, but proof of life.
Melancholy
The birds mass
flight for
autumn’s
through the leaves.
I am torn
by the dying that
never
made some soar.
Delight
So many leaping beauties!
My heart gazelles over strands
of old gloom.
Bewilderment
This ape beneath the skin
beating on pots and pans
sounds a better rhythm
than the man.
Remorse
Lickingly content, the bear of hindsight
lumbers from his wintry hibernation:
bent and bloody in his brute bite
the should-have of past miscalculation.
Despair
It’s something to encounter all your hurt,
immaculate and snowy as an owl
gazing upon you from beneath its cowl
unblinking eyes as golden as they are inert.
Roman : Romaine :: Human : (Video)
Video (really audio) of Roman : Romaine :: Human :. The accompanying image is from a series painted by my brother of "anachronistic Polaroids". I always took this one to be Antony; he always informed me it wasn't. But so it goes.
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