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You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

We begin the long march to ecstasy perfumed with oblivion & beads of sweat,

fight lions after binding ourselves back to back with a muscular vine,

& nearly drown during an eclipse.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

The comedy club requires fingerprints pressed to a screen,

same as the eyeglasses store.

We discover a boat within the boat we dig out of sediment.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

We mistake The Code of Hammurabi Avenue for Morse Code Boulevard

& I screw the wrong cap onto the tube of Crazy Glue.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

We discover criminal activity undertaken in broad daylight,

both admitted and denied, by officials with strange eyes,

in the slow drip of cryptic deceit.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

Your voice echoes like Artaud reciting history inside a hollow stone sphinx,

electric lights in the Department of Missing Persons flicker & darken.

Your name on the envelope blows into the wind like a rose petal.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

Newspapers breathlessly report the relationship of nothingness to nothingness,

& emergency measures forbid speaking while purchasing milk or cotton or soap.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

You journey to the asteroid dead in its tracks above a cornfield

& wash smoke out of your hair.

I juggle my shoes & drag a burlap bag of chicken bones

& broken pencils.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

A cluster of oracles attribute your obsession with mirrors to a butterfly

glowing (& menacing) with translucent wings emanating fiery heat.

The ocean heaves pulverized rubies ashore, fine as ash,

to wash & purify children of the mirror.

We learn to walk beneath a translucent sun.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

You kick burning tires down the street in an existential city.

We listen beneath the shaded archway, as hairline cracks develop,

as Hannibal requires his elephant-drivers, courtesans & spies

explain the subtle yet vivid green of pine needles.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

The fast food drive-thru employee ceremoniously hands you clove cigarettes,

chess pieces & thorns in a glass bowl instead of French fries.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

A washing machine shaking violently loosens bolts in the concrete floor.

Van Gogh cannot reach his face & tied to the bed he sobs.

Postage stamps & bathing beauties innocently beguile.

Floppy hats disguise civilizational collapse.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

During the siege of a walled city you discover your name on a secret list,

& the falling moon in a constellation of automobile headlamps signals

the beginning of the one true revolution.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

Nefertiti hypnotizes The Beatles,

a herd of llamas escape,

& blind tourists robbed at gunpoint refuse to laugh it off.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

They parade out the latest deadly cures,

the dancing nurses smash jars of green pickles,

& Mona Lisa announces to the world she is closing the curtain permanently.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

You report a rickshaw collision with angels & the police accuse you of mischief.

A work crew sent by unknown authorities to seal the sacred spring

develops amnesia,

& you have the same dream three times each night.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

A shaman anoints the tip of your nose with a white paste,

a figure behind a streaked glass windshield adjusts frequencies

aiming a device dead centre on a wasp nest,

& inside the mountain cavern after a day of climbing your stomach feels better.

¥ou call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

Ice cream tastes like karma,

death comes around wearing a fur coat with a giant collar of darker fur,

& everybody looks like Peter O’Toole having a panic attack.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

You continue to gaze at the Encyclopedia of Bare Feet Upon Grass

even as I warn you of dangers in Babylon.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

You write on the chalkboard while sitting on a camel & departing the oasis.

A waterspout of insects shoots up, fractal as stained glass,

escaping a bottomless chalk-lined chamber.

I pilot a butterfly.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

An avalanche of icicles disturbs the tiger’s sleep,

a junkyard dog wearing a suicide vest runs loose in the marshmallow factory,

& black parakeets swooping in dark staircases resemble inky typography.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

A devotee of the Forgotten World Religious Society tumbles bars of soap

into a growling & flashing volcano.

The guardian of the portal sends us on a wild goose chase,

& a painter specializing in ferns claims to be Heironymus Bosch reincarnated.

You call my name, or something similar, in your sleep or in my dream.

The scientist wearing a stethascope & white coat nursing the anvil

with a baby bottle

repeats your name and assigns you a number.

Original image. Gouache & water-soluble graphite on paper, 2021.

Variations digitally created in Photoshop, 2024.

6 Comments

The blues in this painting by Matisse, converging as they do like a gymnast accomplishing the perfect flip, extend beyond the visual revelation into possibilities. To possibly become an aerial destination, seen from above, your jutting shoulder the ledge for a flock of birds. To hold in your writing hand a winning lottery ticket for a 1934 classic Buick convertible. To fall in love before three o’clock on this bucolic afternoon. To possibly, stupendously: stop a war. Dig out rot & corruption. Build an illumined shrine. Change the resonance of your voice, your wardrobe, & the way you dance. Personal failures, minor triumphs & dreams, converging as they do like a ball (spinning) made of clay, made of iron. A white star pulses in the human heart, an archetype as transformational as Sri Yantra. Possibly these shades of blue, pulsing cosmologically, as fulfilling as a yield of wheat, change everything at once. Do you see what you did Matisse?

Henri Matisse *Nude Painting, Plaster Torso and Bouquet of Flowers*, 1919, oil on canvas

December 7, 2023

A Kiss

What one might do with words.

What words might do with one.

When one echoes, ‘Bluebird in Disguise‘

canyon to canyon,

& traces of Cubism disguise the bluebird in a small painting

& one traverses the howling wasteland, to and fro,

criss-crossing a porous sieve – remembering how to protect

who & what one is becoming,

& simultaneously, a rivery motion

there – beside the blacktopped road,

in shades of tinted depth, beyond the gully,

the face of the forest whispering a kiss –

in gut-feelings a kiss –

in language a kiss –

In danger a kiss.

A white-magic kiss.

A mother & child kiss.

A kiss at the wishing well.

A moonlight-upon-ferns kiss.

An elusive kiss.

A kiss clawing through sediment.

A kiss brushing your hair.

A kiss breathing your name.

A kiss chanting forbidden knowldege.

A kiss in animal shadows.

The kiss of ecstatic verse.

The kiss of the crystal star.

A kiss of realization.

A kiss following crucifixion.

In stone a kiss. In wood a kiss.

In sundrops the symbol of a kiss.

A kiss in premonition.

*Bluebird in Disguise*, 2023 – 9″ X 12″ – mixed media on paper

9 Comments

March 4, 2015

‘Mythological Visions of the Nature of Time’ (William Irwin Thompson)

In the post-Pleistocene period the glaciers retreated,

the seashore rose 300 feet,

the tundra turned to forest,

and the great herds disappeared

from Western Europe.

And gone with the animals

was the great ‘high culture’

of Ice Age humanity.

It is not hyperbole

to speak of the high culture

of these hunters and gatherers,

for cave paintings like Lascaux

are complex works that speak rather eloquently

for the abundant leisure

and rich cosmology

of their creators.

Primitive humanity devoted

most of its spare time

to matters of ritual and art.

As a contemplative people with time on their hands,

they gave much thought to menstruation and the moon,

observed nature,

constructed a calendar,

told stories,

and painted hundreds of thousands

of images

on the walls

of the caves.

As the Sistine Chapel expresses

the flowering of the culture

of the Renaissance,

so Lascaux expresses the flowering

of the culture

of the Magdalenians.

In more ways than one,

the two great murals have much in common,

for they are not mere decoration;

they are mythological visions

of the nature of time.

‘The Time Falling Bodies Take To Light: Mythology, Sexuality & the Origins of Culture’ – William Irwin Thompson

11 with credit

12 Comments

December 2, 2014

William of The Nile

montage a

The Pharaoh taught William

How to manipulate

Vibrational fields.

montage e

& William Blake taught The Pharaoh

How to bake with plums,

& How to shake free from ever-unchanging

Sacred taboos.

montage b

The skin of the plum

A portal,

As deep and dark as royal magic.

montage f

(I do not own the copyright to the original images/ William Blake artwork/ the art of ancient Egypt, nor do I claim such. I have created a new digital work for purposes of parody or commentary under fair use provisions.)

montage a

6 Comments

March 5, 2014

Toast with Honey

street look

You walk home from the dance

Thinking of the girl you met

Wearing an orange dress

street 1

You wonder

If she would love you

If you tied yourself

With rope

To the wing

Of a small plane

Photographing

A tree

street 2

Cars drive slowly crunching snow

You think of human pyramids

orangeishola

You see the tree on the horizon

& plan a filmic strategy

street 3

She spoke with an accent

Pronouncing the titles

Of paintings

By her favourite artist

Influenced by somebody

round

Following breakfast

Wooden spoon dripping honey

You foray out into the world:

Emergency investigation

At the library

Downtown.

fame

Summoning the gods

of the Dewey Decimal System.

street 5

Last night the street was quiet with softly falling snow, not too cold, and it took me back to something that may or may not have happened.

I remembered being young & swirling ribbons of sticky, amber honey & trips to the library.

And walking home late at night considering both the terrible and the hopeful & being puzzled by the odd flash of invisible magic charging the air.

The NASA space photo used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

The goldfish found online, no photographer credited.

The street scene I snapped with my phone.

double oval

10 Comments

September 26, 2013

OPEN STUDIO AT THE ARTISTS COLONY by Nancy Kline

VCCA, February 14, 2009

The visual artist in the studio next door is knitting stainless steel and silk. She’s disabused now, she makes prints of clothes unraveling. A dark skein stained. She’s knitting up the sleeve of care.

Electric ukelele down the hall! A white piano plays itself (we all do, here). It has no hands. The trombone-player has composed a piece starring an interstellar Po’ Boy. He slides us along. He sings us a valentine.