poemimage

The visual & poetic become each the other but not always.

Month: April, 2024

The Pen & the Plan: @ 50% Complete

I am now 50% complete working on the B&W roll of 5′ X 33-35′ paper. When I complete this second roll of paper I will have a diptych. But now I have the idea for a triptych. 

Brushwork with inks & gouache + drawing with water-soluble graphite pencils create different blacks and different whites in contrast.

I repeat & develop two images that begin the first blue roll of paper. The moon-ish figure and the dna figure (below) & seen above.

https://poemimage.com/2023/05/01/druidica-blue-deja-vu-cave-art-for-the-new-psyche/

A fountain springs from ‘bird-human’s’ hand and at the same time is a swan’s neck.

Within the fountain or swan’s neck a series of images depict a beast ‘vomiting’ a seed which shoots into the earth (mound), takes root and rises.

The green bit of tape shows the 17′ mark. Animal shapes and double faces. A joker or fool. Figures in the mound. ‘Watery spray’ opening into what comes next…

Being 50% complete with this roll of paper equals being 50% through completing a triptych. The plan is for visual poetry on the third roll of paper. The challenge now, in completing the second roll of paper, is to move away from intricate detail.

The idea is to keep track of my hours (with the pen & the book) after each day’s effort.

I’ve organized (with high-tech paper clips) the rough sketches and ideas to complete the second roll of paper. I don’t know yet how I’ll use these ideas – deliberately composing or spontaneously expressing.

Previously in progress:

Beginning where I left off @ 25% with this face & beginning to elaborate.

Ceremonial crown inspired by the European deer-god idea Cernunnos. Antlers look branch-like as well.

Check out the previous work on this B&W roll of paper (and the blue roll of paper preceding it) @ https://poemimage.com/2024/01/25/the-pen-the-book-the-plan/

Building the figure & relationships between figures:

Boudica in the shadows

I was happy with being unhappy the way things were.

Existing on eggs & meat

with the occasional organic chocolate bar.

I raised the giant light bulb I stole from the Pop Art exhibition

on my 70th birthday,

standing on one of the portable full-length machines

(noticing it was unplugged & unattended)

& trying to not lose my balance.

GET THEE HENCE!

Return to your dignified echo chambers

with your legal formulas, checklists & ventriloquism!

Return to your dignified echo chambers

with your legal formulas, checklists & ventriloquism!

They looked at me.

LET THERE BE LIGHT!

They looked at me.

When I said, ‘Let there be light,’ I saw Boudica in the shadows.

She had traveled a great distance.

She carried some kind of lantern or 3-dimensional illumined manuscript.

I climbed down from the machine.

She said, ‘You should drink chicory coffee.

I’m a shadow of what I was.

You should ride with us.

Is the water safe to drink?’

A flame flickered in her ear and disappeared up the ear canal.

the flowers

In neon mystery the flowers explode.

In singularity the flowers explode.

Syncretism

Carefully tread, carefully thread, the needle of what was said.

In colour-waves attune.

In colour-waves atone.

Inside the prison yard whisper.

Into the prism of the rainbow whisper

what was written / what was said.

Carefully tread, carefully thread, the needle of what was said.

They will have you undermine

the oppressed.

They will have you undermine the true & proven.

Reach your hands into all you have known.

Sun-sparkled colourwaves (invisibly) penetrate

White lights glowingly (invisibly) hover & whoosh

Vibrations thread a feathery needle of thought

dotting patterns dot-dot-dot

decorating a bone.

Thrown

flat-skipping like a slippery stone

upon the wide black river.

Now sweeping & curvilinear

shapeshifting

beneath a gushing, clairvoyant waterfall.

Carefully tread, carefully thread, the needle of what was said.

In colour-waves attune.

In colour-waves atone.

At the bottom of the heart near reeds, roots & moss

ecstatic hail-stones dot-dot-dot

to punctuate the antlers of memory

in pale, eggshell-blue, vibrato adoration.

Carefully tread, carefully thread, the needle of what was said.

They will have you undermine

the oppressed.

They will have you undermine springtime & the doors of perception,

limestone, chalk & shadows & the poet’s feathered cloak.

Shadows fall upon the antlered illumination.

Shadows fall upon the amber impersonation.

Yellow sun-rays (rising) emancipate electrical fires,

in resurrection completing the cycle of consciousness.

Insurrections of (& within) the heart & body

complete the cycle of consciousness.

If you are going to the fair

where the scent of springtime circles the air

remember me to one in the reeds, roots & moss

who divines with burning knuckles:

the secrets of the moths,

the edges of furniture carved like Newgrange,

& the freedoms (lost) we took for granted.

Carefully tread, carefully thread, the needle of what was said.

They will have you undermine

the oppressed.

They will have you undermine benevolent embrace, embroidery & beehives.

Reach your hand into all you have known.

In the ebony pupil of the watery eye, quick as quicksand,

mirrors the risen yellow sun:

Lions made of electrical fire

tossed and roaring, gain their footing,

patiently prowl in foamy camouflage

upon the wide black river.

“Never again shall a single story be told as though it were the only one.” —John Berger, from Ways of Seeing