poemimage
The visual & the poetic.
Category: Digital art
October 26, 2020
GIF Experiments: 3 (My brother’s fish & my father’s funeral)
My brother cried, ‘Popeye is dead. Popeye is dead. He was inconsolable.’ His little google-eyed black fish perished overnight and floated in the bowl. At my father’s funeral the stress of the previous day’s open-casket visitation almost pushed my siblings and myself over the edge. We sat in a row along the pew, waiting for the minister to speak, our strange hushed laughter bubbling.
I appreciate the support given to me by the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Originals program in funding this GIF project based on text (with added images) from my most recent book Meme-Noir.
October 25, 2020
GIF Experiments: 2 (Five Works)
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I appreciate the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Originals Program support for this project.
October 22, 2020
GIF Experiments: 1 (Four early works)
The Canada Council For the Arts ‘Digital Originals’ grant program has funded my project creating GIFS using text from my recent book Meme-Noir.
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February 25, 2020
mystery word
The poem about Minoa
wasn’t about Minoa only.
Another word.
A mystery word.
Not mother of Minoa,
medicines of Minoa
or
magic of Minoa.
No.
Although
any of these
seem valid,
perfectly fine.
Yes.
I’ll stash them someplace.
For the event, in the event, of requiring
a possible, future
mystery word.
March 15, 2018
When the Situation Hits Reverse
When the situation hits reverse
When you sleep and the situation speaks in tongues
When you don’t have a seatbelt and you don’t have a car
Going backwards off a cliff is not such a bad plan.
You might start dancing and you might change hats
You might introduce yourself as somebody new
But you don’t have a car and you don’t want to steal
So you rise from the dead just to try it out.
And you’re not such a dunce – as you feel your way –
And you spin even more – and feel even more new.
I wrote this in a couple of minutes to the tune of Fates Right Hand by Rodney Crowell – sort of a country rap song from years ago. I always like personal transformation stories. Not that Fate’s Right Hand is a personal transformation story. But I guess the juxtaposition of these images signifies such a possibility.
November 21, 2017
JFK at Woodstock
Just before Jimi Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner
A wave went through the crowd.
He’s here.
Sleeping girls with feet caked in mud stirred.
Boys asleep with long wet hair awoke.
He’s here.
Potheads spinning up looked down.
Potheads coming down looked up.
He’s here.
Country Joe and Buffalo Springfield and Melanie
saw something moving like a river & coming into view.
He’s here.
He spoke without using a mic.
Ask not what your country can remember for you.
Ask what you can remember for your country.
The crowd applauded and gave him a standing ovation.
‘Inauguration Day man,’ the guy next to me said.
I looked at him closely.
The pottery in the next to last image is of Cucuteni-Trypillian neolithic heritage. I thought it played off the idea of ‘pothead’ as well as being a vessel the motorcade passed through. The images superimposed over JFK in the third image are the Sri Yantra diagram and a detail from the Book of Kells representing JFK’s ancestry. JFK loved poetry and read for pleasure so these are perhaps fitting images of tactile and spiritual deep time.
I do not claim copyright on original images. I have created new, non-commercial artworks for the purpose of parody or commentary.
November 16, 2017
HABITS by Majlinda Bashllari
Around here we measure everything
words, costs, speeds–
so nobody gets hurt
be sorry et cetera.
Define and predict: the span of germs,
the time of dinosaurs,
the era of humans.
Expiry dates on foods
favour short-lived romances
over the lifetime ones.
We’re being practical.
We measure tumours.
Sizes disturb us
same as their unyieldingness.
We keep notes. Calculate and file.
Out of stubbornness
we look for equals.
The whereabouts of clouds
we know precisely. Not so sure
about our thoughts,
we get near them,
they dodge
and wave –
young hands inside a steep creek.
Realm of flesh fingers that measure
the cruelty of flow.
Born in Albania, Majlinda Bashllari is the author of two poetry collections, Një udhë për në shtëpi (A road to home), published in Tirana, Albania (Morava, 2007) & Love is a very long word, published by Guernica Editions in 2016. Bashllari’s work has appeared in numerous Albanian art and literature magazines and in Albanian anthologies of essays and short stories. She lives in Toronto.
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