When I created this painting – it had been a while since I created a black and white painting – I thought it was a little unfinished. I named it Life in the City to reflect that the city colors are not nature colors, and there is more anger as a result of this, I feel. Although this was created a month ago, it is poignant today.
Something else that fell out of the end of the pen…..
Childs play
Play with time.
Play with time and mold it
like a consequence of childhood,
a wrong turn in family, leading to
raising more of a hellcat than a child.
Play with time
and fold the horror back into itself
until it is no more than a streak
as inconsequential as a minute
you only remember when reading your diary.
Play with time
until the book falls out of the window
when you move out
and life becomes a Play-Doh landscape
that is finally your own.
Some things just fall out of the end of the pen…..
When I’m dead
You’ll be the first I’ll visit when I’m dead.
I guess that you’ll be waiting there for me
and we can say all that we’ve left unsaid
about things that were never meant to be.
You’ll get the joke I never did tell right,
unless we’re in a place jokes can’t be told.
You’ll know that fuss I made was not a fight,
and love that would have stayed as we grow old –
because it did, despite lives that diverged
for reasons that need never be explained.
Each time I thought of death, my feelings surged
that it would be when I see you again.
You’ll be the first I’ll visit when I’m through
and then you’ll know I wrote this one for you.
I decided to spent some of my new free time to call people I haven’t seen in a while, or have stopped seeing in the course of life because of the social distancing. I also decided to use the time for some more poetry. On Sunday afternoon I sat down to write a poem but didn’t find any inspiration, so I decided to call someone. I got voicemail. So I called someone else. Ditto. Eight voicemails later, I had my inspiration.
Voicemail
A quiet day with little going on,
in Covid times the schedule is quite bare.
I miss my friends, hope they have not become
statistics with what’s going on out there.
I guess they also won’t have much to do
so thought I’d be the one that would reach out,
pick up the phone and say “Hey, how are you?”
not leave our friendship’s worth to me in doubt.
But all I got was voicemails! Every one!
Had I missed out on something? Checked the news…
there’s really nothing different going on!
I guess just me that’s sat here with the blues.
They’ll all call back at once, that’s what they’ll do
And get my outgoing voicemail message too!
My schedule has been so free recently I’ve actually had time to post my monthly newsletter to WordPress in advance. Enjoy the fun I had with this scammer!
Got the inspiration for this one while doing a little clean up for my absent neighbor. I was working early in the morning before it got way to hot, even for the acclimated desert rat, to be doing yardwork. I decided to turn the inspiration into a kid’s summer day because the first line had a bit better ring than ‘I caught the sun while grubbing in the yard…..’
Catching the sun
You caught the sun, you held it like a ball
in two-year hands – a shining rounded joy
so newly given, a perfect rolling toy
and never thought that it would burn at all.
Your retina was blotched from gazing up,
your shoulders burned, your face, your arms, your knees
from summer’s day your heart demand you sieze
to dance beneath the heated turquoise cup
of sky. And as earth rolled round to sunset
you played your heart out, flew it like a kite
upon the solar wind, til it grew night
and tiredness told you it was time for bed.
Your red face says you caught the sun today.
Your smile, that it was worth it just to play.
Holy Ground
As light rises
My eyes fall
Upon his temple
Arm raised to ease the pain
Of the damage of an old storm,
Lips pursed against
A dream he won’t remember
Reminding me
Of last night’s worship
With the temple of my own soul’s abode
Happy that these buildings
Are now anchored together
And hoping to join against
The weather of life times
As long as they stand.
It was inevitable. At some point someone was going to challenge me to write a sonnet about Covid-19. Despite my science background, I was mostly inspired by the roadwork at the corner of Highway 86 and State route 22.
Behind the cones
Workers dismissed, how long for, they don’t know.
Equipment lying folded by the street’s
half torn-up surface; they’ve been here for weeks –
the crane, the gravel truck, the red back-hoe,
all wondering if they’re going to start again.
It’s been a month now since the workers left –
something is wrong – the world’s been set adrift
and they are out here rusting in the rain
that’s also started to erode the work
they’ve done so far. Nature takes back the earth
freed from the blacktopl strange kind of rebirth
spawned from the fear of one small viral quirk.
One day when covid-19’s finally gone
the work behind the cones will carry on.
Having gotten to the point in life where I can order from the senior menu, I was eligible to enter the 55+ show “Visions: A gathering of Elders”, and this was it turned out the last time I was able to go to a gathering before the world imploded. True that people were observing precautions such as elbow bumps vs. handshakes, but otherwise it seems that the elder wisdom was the same as for having a bad cold. Don’t cough on people, and go home and feel sorry for yourself for two weeks.
Otherwise it was a normal art show. This was hosted at the Walter N. Marks art gallery at UC Riverside Palm Desert.
I recognized the work of Gary Borgstedt – far right – though I didn’t see him at the opening.
Diane Morgan was also there, she too had a painting in the show.
That scuplture in the middle was very intersting.
One of the two fabric entries
Intersection of the virtual and real worlds.
Such a variety of mediums, subjects and styles with an open-themed show.
I think I had the physically smallest entry in the show.
This lamp was my second favorite entry.
The orange Bee painting to the right of the door is Diane’s.
Donna Miller-Haggerty and I took pics of each other in front of our paintings.
And this one was my absolute favorite. So sorry, don’t remember the artist’s name at this point.
A few years back I was travelling from Southern California for a show in Bellevue – right next door to Seattle. It’s a two day drive, pretty much up the entire west coast of the US. I had kinda planned on stopping just north of the Oregon border, but didn’t make firm plans as I figured I wasn’t sure if my tiredness would get me that far, or my awakeness would let me press on further. I’d actually spotted a well-priced motel in my aim area, and sure enough, just as California disappeared in the rear view mirror, the eyelids started to droop.
I pulled off the road at what appeared to be a motel-bearing town in this rural stretch of Interstate 5. Miraculously I passed the very motel I’d seen on the internet. The parking lot was only half full. It was late, though. The office only had a dim light on. I knocked on the door. In a few moments the motel clerk appeared.
In fairness to the man, he was obviously of Indian origin – India Indian, not Native American. Different culture. I asked ‘Is there room at the inn?’ ‘No,’ he replied. Oh, ok, nevermind, I thanked him and turned to leave. I’d gotten as far as the truck when he came out after me. ‘I have room at the other end!’ Huh?
Turns out he’d misheard me as ‘Is there room at the end?’ and had completely missed the Christmas reference! In his further defense, he’d only been in the US about 5 months.
Skyscapes for the Soul - Jeni Bate 