Poetic & Visual Narrative | poemimage

Category: Poetic & Visual Narrative

November 11, 2014

To Such Belong the Kingdom of the Heavens: A Visual Essay on The 11th Hour of The 11th Day of The 11th Month (Remembrance Day)

As I understand the accepted wisdom Jesus was a peacemaker. Reflecting upon Remembrance Day one cannot help but think of how children (and civilians) are affected by war. I have incorporated the biblical quotes/visual references into this digital essay as a way of contemplating the historical workings of religion towards war.

one four

‘Jesus however said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them; for it is to those who are childlike that the Kingdom of the Heavens belongs.’ – Weymouth New Testament, Matthew 19:14

‘Blessed are the Peacemakers…’ – Matthew 5:9

Images of Christ from the Ravenna Mosaics – a public domain image from Wikipedia Commons.

Credit: Photos of children from the online collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art released for non-commercial adaption. I have used images from the great photographers Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, Johan Hayemeyer. If I have misunderstood the terms of conditions attached to these images I will remove the digital collages from online publication.

final

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November 5, 2014

, Autumn Morning

Poema 20

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, “The night is starry

and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.”

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.

How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses.

Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

Pablo Neruda

16 Comments

October 27, 2014

Accidental Surprise

Many years ago I did a printmaking project in an underprivileged school.

One of the students made a print of (what I thought was) a Central or South American religious deity.

I was intrigued with the clay pots or were those drums?

1 god

Then I realized I had been looking at it all wrong. Wrong as in ‘upside down.’

How surprising that a cute, cartoon dog (or mouse), when reversed, depicted such an altogether different creature.

Nothing about the ‘accidental’ image reflected the student’s cultural environment.

two views

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October 24, 2014

An ideology that took root

31. An ideology that took root

A film about Fascism,

In a garden with shadowy eagles,

Reflecting on the ancient definition of Flowers.

2. An ideology that took root 6. An ideology that took root

A shadowy figure

Behind a windowbox of plants or flowers,

Reminding me of the mysterious, ornate windows I’d seen

Walking about Rome.

16. An ideology that took root

And the Political-noir

Of an ideology that took root,

Thrown in sharp relief by flickering street lamps,

Mussolini’s definition of Fascism,

The Imperial Eagle of Ancient Rome,

& Flowers at a memorial.

10. An ideology that took root

My uncle

Convalescing,

When he was young & wounded,

Laughing on the telephone about

A flower pot tossed

From an upper story,

Barely missing.

21. An ideology that took root 23. An ideology that took root
And concerning the decision I made,

I would have told my son to do the same.

28. An ideology that took root 30. An ideology that took root copy 16. An ideology that took root

11 Comments

October 22, 2014

Rays of an Ancient Light Driving You Home

birdlandia

Did you possibly imagine (you couldn’t have)

On that youthful, sun-dappled afternoon,

The rays of an ancient light caressing your skin & inspiration, when you were

A skipping stone striking at the perfect angles & gaining your balance,

Amusedly & perfectly crossing a warm stream at the edge of town,

The water fresh and the fences down,

ochre

Driving home after closing time…

The years marking your skin in ways the Great Depression & the

Enemy marked your psyche, past an abandoned brewery,

Seeing the quiet streets coming up fast like a flood, silent as a submarine,

Balancing on wet stones, laughing as you splashed & driving home

After closing time, to a lonely house, impervious to depth charges,

Past the dislodged bricks of the abandoned brewery,

Imagining that sun-splashed afternoon & shallow, sparkling water,

truly

Your children crossing streams within darkened rooms,

Finding their balance, in ways the enemy

faintly

Marked your psyche & warm afternoons caressed your inspiration,

An ancient star illuminating quiet streets, starlight splashing,

Streaming into and beyond abandoned spaces,

Rays of an ancient light driving you home.

birdlandia

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October 5, 2014

For Whom the Tiger Lilies Toll

Tiger Lily,

Jumping at the sun,

Singing to my mother,

Your jitterbugging effervescence

Revisited:

Seen in the rear-view mirror,

In the light of

Swimwear fashion-history

The tragic reversal of

Original alchemical

Fortune.

Consider:

The destruction of the Bikini Atoll

By American nuclear testing for war preparedness

(1946),

And the subsequent starvation of relocated islanders,

As well as the irradiation & poisoning of the native, original environment.

black and tan

Events

Intersected, by the frolic of

Bikini,

Designed & sewn by a Parisian –

Shall I editorialize,

Paraphrasing Yeats: Rag & bone shop

Of the physical,

Or simply,

Fashion design house

Emulating

The blast psychology of the atomic bomb

Within & upon

Contemporary, popular culture,

Mirroring the undoing:

Alchemical atomic nothingness unleashed

Upon

Fauna and flora, coral & the seabed…

Only one year earlier

Undressing & disintegrating

Cities:

Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Bikini

Introduced to the public

Five days after the blast

On the Atoll.

My mother adored Tiger Lilies.

My brother delivered her ashes

Into a forest,

Spreading them across the roots and moss –

Shaking her into the wind –

Planting again her Tiger Lily bulbs,

Jitterbugging,

On the West Coast.

Where have all the flowers gone?

Original photograph by Grahame Garner (1964) of women with a Ban the Bomb banner in Brisbane, Australia.

Source: http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:114192

I do not own copyright to this image and have altered it for purposes of non-commercial commentary under fair use provisions.

15 Comments

October 2, 2014

An Asymmetrical Drawing Lightly & Beyond

You might think the birds would fly three dimensionally

Into this their second body of branches and leaves,

Tuning a vibrational revelation at mechanisms

Attuned eons ago to invisible knowledge,

Whispering upon silent migration,

Twigs and victorious feather,

Summery din of magic,

Sunlight swooping,

Midnight vine

Asleep in

Dreams

Made

I glean pathways, spiralling gyres, thin vivacious lines

Echoing in silvery twigs & prehistorical symbolism,

Glimmering beyond this garden of fallen souls,

A volcanic woman nesting like a blue bird,

Her bed an ancient sea of knowledge,

Flowering & blooming oceanic sky

Harmonizing & hammering,

Hypnotizing shadows arc

Perceiving caravans,

Intuiting stone,

Entrancing

Watery

Eyes

bookism

Those nights and days, mostly nights, shaded and cool,

Illuminated by the slow voyaging of distant starlight,

Songs of star-birds meandering far from magnetic

Fields with soft grasses imprinted upon wings,

Upon all motion, this hand with pen, now

A decision as if Original Idea, golden

Original Thought, in purposeful

Cascading winds, lighting

Archways & beyond,

Whose feathers

And twigs

Speak

with circle new tomorrowpsd

8 Comments

September 30, 2014

Atomic War and the Baseball Championship At Stake

Earlier that day in school

We were told to ‘duck and cover.’

The teacher explained:

Those communists will soon lay waste

To the surrounding farmland and fields,

The blast will be as brilliant as the sun.

Do not look into it!

Charred flesh and animal remains will be

Driven by the force of the wind through the classroom windows.

Pray to god they do not launch multiple warheads:

Evaporating the dairy farms,

Tractor dealerships and pine forests.

You must, as one, kneel beneath your desks,

Noses pressed into the floor,

Knuckles clasped firmly behind your heads,

Under no circumstances open your eyes!

I stared at lines

On the wooden floor

Wondering how deep

The grooves went.

Sometimes they led us into the basement,

Turning the lights off:

I listened to breathing

In the black, damp air:

A multitude of moist

Nostrils inhaling

Cold

Concrete.

That night at the baseball game we were playing for the championship.

‘Everything depends on tonight’s effort,’ said the coach.

‘Everything.’

8 Comments

September 24, 2014

Every Day A Bucket Goes Through the World and We Were By the Pool

earthbook 123

I wondered about all the ways a bucket

Could go through the world:

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Metaphorically, Emotionally, Politically, Sexually.

Physically.

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And I wondered about the actions of the process:

Drilling, Lulling, Hypnotizing.

Seducing, Elucidating, Revealing.

Reversing.

earthbook

To what outcome I asked myself:

In what shape of hole or chasm

Does the bottom fall out?

some kind og

Is negative space the new positive?

double bucket book

Does the bucket absorb the shape of the earth

And lose itself,

Once or forever?

yellow bird

I asked myself these questions and meditated upon the possible answers.

No I didn’t.

one day

We were at a pool and the girl I liked was on a towel next to me,

And when I said I loved the Bob Marley song

Coming over the loudspeakers

She said she hated it.

montage newly triangulated oval fadeout ovalina x ovalina xx ovalina

4 Comments

September 21, 2014

I Have Learned So Much by Hafiz

new

Have

Learned

So much from God

That I can no longer

Call

Myself

circular detail green night

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,

a Buddhist, a Jew.

invited

The Truth has shared so much of Itself

With me

spoken

That I can no longer call myself

A man, a woman, an angel,

Or even a pure

Soul.

whipporwhill pearl

Love has

Befriended Hafiz so completely

It has turned to ash

And freed

zz2 feather

Of every concept and image

my mind has ever known.

swimming 2

From: ‘The Gift’

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

thouest thou only

I did the ink drawing in my Moleskin sketchbook within the last few days

using a Micron drawing pen with archival ink.

And the digital manipulations of the image within the last 24 hours or so

using Photoshop 5.

new mood new

14 Comments

Category: Poetic & Visual Narrative