Manifesto

Manifesto

Acrylic on Canvas. 2009

pavor nocturnus

And
there is darkness here
Thick,
not even stars

Siege to the castle!
Siege!

The parapet has already been taken
and I can hear them bringing down the doors

Tumble
walls
tumble

But I will guard
the cornerstone
with my heart

Rose Scented Illusion

The moon tugs angry at my heart,
drawing black blood in an ebb and flow
of the sea that crashes and roars
against the rocks beneath this monstrous cliff.

The mist hangs in patches dissolving shadows:
no wonder I cannot see who I am,
give me a candle so I can satiate myself-
are these really my raw, soap-frothing hands?

Love was a wonder, a cherished hope,
but now I am down on blistering knees,
chasing a potato for the next singeing meal
over a kitchen fire that has burnt my years.

He shall not patch me up with occasional nods
and bland phrases reeking boredom;
he brings me roses on a Sunday forgetting
that there are thorns on the bloodied stems.

celebrating the superficiality of all things being made equal

let us join hands
you and i
and tramp down this falling away
road new paved by over-baked schemes
and the shattered
windshield glass from a dream car
we left for dead many miles back
every tire including the spare had blown
and they still hiss their casual tunes
while popped-out
flesh-tone hoses
dangle and sprinkle
a rainbow gloss on black-rimmed puddles
it’s a cause for deepening joy
these shallows won’t
dry up in either of our weened lifetimes
moisten your lips dear
and make that pineapple-sweet whistle
i love to taste
when i dare to plant my tongue there
the food’s long gone
and pots are now for banging
we’ve lost our way
and maps are made for shredding
into playfully themed streamers
we’ll tie in our hair
as we dance off the waning
silky heat of a too-late summer
the sun’s dial is flipping
and bound by those zeros
we’ve gotta go but it’s best
we’re brought low together

we live in the subway...

by human being

illustrations by rhoda penmarq

we live in the subway at different stations no one ever leaves here we just live our life! sisyphus rolls his boulder from one station to the other nobody gives him a hand no one has got a hand in this land we do not shake hands here we just shake our heads as we walk thoughts can't climb the stairs dialogs are run over by trains we all run to take a trip to take a sit to take a nap to dream of the land above that we are not allowed to visit they are busy there they are busy cleaning the land from bodies and trees they want the land bodiless they want the land treeless they say bodies and trees make it priceless and they laugh no one cares about the meaning of words in this land we just hear the words we hear them laughing we hear them cleaning the land we hear the bodies and the trees that are cleaned the subway is full of voices and sounds but nobody listens joshua bell's violin is begging for hearing ears nobody lends him even a pierced ear no one has got an ear in this land fear has got the upper hand courage is lost in the maze of knowledge minds do not find each other they masturbate in their interior monologs poetry is raped by busy nets stories are stillborn we live in the subway at different stations no one ever leaves here we just live our life ............................................ like a dry leaf in the wind

a gift of green mussels gone

A flash of blown snow in August

aural blizzard driven wavy

as memory mirrors one lined

lost lane to hard cracked two:

drifts mounded to sandy dunes

of seaside grass that trembles

near curtain slats partly open

five hooked fingers pull shell

to split full lips from beardless

sands tracked on nacre floors,

cooled by paneled ocean breezes

doors swollen down to aqua sea

and a sticky lizard laughs beige

at the gravity of stucco walls

gladly not to sweat the beady

orange tricks of salty summer,

the pink necklaces of blush

that fritter in the mangrove

provide cover for the titter

of bashful larks as the scrub's

unexpected scent of raspberry

envelopes an unplucked flower.

The scene not too unseasonal

to offer wry spreading frost

webbed silver in spun summer

causing flashed peaks to stiffen

with the surprise of early chill:

to trace back crash to Wednesday

in the boney script come please,

penned in aqua ink the day before,

imagined blue flats a foundation

for the invite shy of bas-relief

the wet release at lost belief,

a delight to the slippery slip

a worn cloth belt champion grey

on the frayed white damask sofa

and sliding on pearly puffy drips.

One last peak at tawny tight skin

a museum quality veneer covering

fictions and histories and exits,

one lasts as the mirror glazes

ice forward glacier white

a straight-jacket yardstick

from an under blaze heard

the swoop of three egrets four

is white down in eastern sky

and just back from the stars:

a gift of green mussels gone.

On turning 30

She is fragmented in the mirror,
a possibility failing over and over
to come to fruition.
How does one put the myriad petals
back into a rose?

(I think I've had an overdose of Sylvia Plath)

Bolide

Standing on the brink
of a thousand and one
tiny explosions
I witness,
beyond the mist,
the shade of a shadow
performing its most wonderfully
piercing act

And darkness descend!
But for a pair of
chilled silhouettes;
synchronous steps,
arms flapping,
beating about like wings

Oh, to the moonlight
I return!

Gone Up in Smoke

What I saw then was different-
it could not have been you.
Blindfolded then maybe,
now I breathe indifferently
but sometimes
as in autumn when the trees
begin to shed tangerine leaves
and the clouds veil the sun
for weeks at a time,
a sharp pang of regret
over a lie concocted
or a devious riddle I failed
to solve pierces through me
with a black intensity,
an affliction I simply
cannot sustain.

August 2010

one day your jellyroll will

One way to be in the world

is to live jerk furtive

in the quick store carpark

squat behind buick wheel

scraped and all banged in,

hungover unshaved erect,

with no pony tips to play.

Mocha big gulp balanced

on vinyl dash cracks with

your beige savior upright,

one gloss ring per bored day

making a coaster extra luxe

while spitting your dribble

onto seedy shifting carpet,

rubbed off brake and clutch.

Sneaker tongue shot eyelet

worn through daily rhythm,

enjoying only in your mind

white sweats stretched elastic

from damp plastic into trash

when the lap becomes the thighs.

Ritual light and sweet

a morning queue wait,

flapping brown packets

of sugar bulging pre-tear

next to spills of coffee

and ashes from the suck of now:

an ask never even noticed

glimmers into wasted guilt

from the gimlet of your eye.

Death wish goose limping,

invisible to chrome hoods,

tries to reach the wood

wondering how much glass

is really in this world.

Lone Star

Another favorite subject: Arthropods

Insects
Acrylic on canvas
(One of my favorite paintings)
click to enlarge

Take Off
acrylic/fluted sbs
35"x28"

meaning...

by human being

illustrations by rhoda penmarq

once upon a time, there lived a creature called meaning... meaning didn't know who it was and life seemed so meaningless to it... so it started a journey to find out... wherever it saw someone on the road, it stopped and asked... but no one knew who it was... it saw lots of people and places... it had lots of sad and happy moments but still that meaninglessness bothered it... one day when it was sitting by a pond looking at the play of light on the surface of water, it noticed a face on the water... no! it was not its reflection... and this is not the story of Narcissus... the face on the water was smiling... while meaning knew exactly how it (itself) felt: sad and tired... the face on the water was trying to say something... while meaning knew it (itself) had been silent for a long time... meaning loved that smile... those lips that were trying to say something... meaning tried to listen but.... splash! a coconut dropped in the pond... monkeys were hungry... and were trying to eat something... the face was gone... meaning became a frequent visitor to the pond... day after day it came there to see the face again... that smile ... those moving lips... but the moment the face appeared and wanted to say something, something happened and the face disappeared... but meaning never gave up... it built a house there... planted lots of plants and trees... made friends with all people and creatures there... . and each day came to the pond to see the face... the moment the face appeared, meaning would tremble with joy... and thought it was the happiest being in the world... now meaning felt its life was meaningful... and they lived happily ever after? no... this story is a bit different... on a very beautiful morning something strange happened after years of visit to the pond... when the face appeared... nothing happened to make the face disappear... they looked at each other for a long time... smiling... at last, meaning asked the face: - who are you? the face smiled more broadly than ever and answered: - i'm... nothing... meaning paused for a long time... then it entered the water very slowly... careful not to disturb its motionless surface... and they became one... no one has seen meaning since then...

It Makes No Sense

Don't tell me it's not a crazy world
When women stringed in heavy pearls
And priceless furs to which the dead smell
Of flayed animal heat still clings,

Slide out of hotels huge and foreign spiced
With glittering floors and cucumbers sliced
In odd shapes, labor of sweat and blood,
To sell through hot, steaming kitchens and lure

Exquisite taste buds nurtured by leafing
Through the right magazines, cameras flashing
To capture a beautiful morsel entering
A costly mouth, red-lipped in layers hiding

Tiny winter cracks and expelling
Fumes from breath freshener bottles displaying
The heraldic arms of a corporation labeled
In loud golden letters.

Don't tell me it's not a crazy world
When across the street from one such hotel,
A wrinkled man lies by the side of the road
Missing a leg in a land mine carrying a load

Of cooking oil and flour for the family's bread.
His clothes are filthy with the peculiar smell
Of need and endlessly streaming sweat
With boots rugged and barely hanging together

And hammered in places with rusty nails.
By the road he lies come heaven or hail,
Begging for food his body daily craves
While frenzied lice crawling through his matted hair,

Enact a circus to keep the people away,
Who recoil on instinct as they pass him by,
Wishing that the council would have him displaced-
He is spoiling their perfect landscape.

August 2010

it ain't why

with no keen counter to humid flats

rose of sharon mauves in mid-august

burst in the eye's betrayal legion and

under gables feral a longing drenches

poured down panes flapped lead peels

mixt and ridden by unguttered rain

curved up on wetness sweet at splash

to poke in furtive quiet an arbor hid

of unripe grapes climbing scaling blues

unfixed to picket and pecking lark

from rolling front behind her back

chopped bug tagged his rust creep box

red caboose with curled black arrow

lined blue and green and it was good

the sprayed art of him spiked in flats

black white moonlit that snapped away

skirt stuck paisley intact from quickly

licking came pale the same curved thigh

clanged iron recoil from a pearly quiver

balled up panties by the engine track

a nacre nib in fiction so perfect fades

recorded to a wrinkly black book

in pocket shady ink on onion skin

culled smile over donuts plated plain

and peaceful rings of cooling coffee

on gray speckled veneer chipped thin

to plywood dusted sweet and low

scratching the dawn he went up swiss

got on the china horse near needle park

and not returned through alpine drifts

less days ahead than behind the bark

what happens after fade to black

is just what happens now

It's Always Snowing in Philidelphia

I’m sentimental against my will. I save text messages. I have to force myself to delete them because I have an old lady phone that doesn’t hold many of them.

I like my old lady phone. I like busting it out when guys at bars ask for my number and I feel ambivalent enough to say yes. They look shocked. They think you have to be crazy to have an old lady phone or otherwise illegally unhip. I hesitate to inform them that I’m crazy and illegally unhip. They usually call anyway and I don’t pick up my old lady phone. 

The last text message I sent to Philadelphia said “We forgot to use the handcuffs.”

I wonder how cold it is in London. It should snow. It has to snow. It’s cold enough. 

Baptism
acrylic/canvas
aprox. 38"x28"

innuendos...

.


an american night
a canadian flight
at a hong kong airport
through the gate of silence
anonymous identities
clothed in quoted cloaks
vampiring the auspicious vehicle of art running through your veins
disheartening the troubadour steps of travelers
divorcing the dubious hands of doves
throwing a monkey wrench into the wheel of communication
coloring the world in their putrid paranoia
dissolving love in a lamenting loneliness


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june2009-july2010
*american night is a cinematographic technic...
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