poemimage

The visual & the poetic.

Tag: memory

March 24, 2016

A Bridge Out of Limbo

a6common scene

& When you think of who you are,

a8

The deep waters rising about you, within you,

a19wild blue gash

& Within you, who you are, symbols embedded within & upon a book of code,

a13green ball 6green ball 6green ball 6

Like a stamp or seal upon a document, & you swim through the hollow and the false,

a4icy wind

Bearing metaphorical code,

a14

& When you think of who you are and what you have delivered, you realize

a12descent

The brave are still within us,

a2

& Your metaphor is reality, holding fast to your sense of balance, carrying out your mission,

a20common scene

& You never venture from your footing upon this precipice,

a8

& your children walk upon dry land.

a7wild blue gasha5

U.S. Naval Archives Photo # 80-G-238786: USS San Jacinto steaming with USS Lexington in the Mariana (Islands) area, 13 June 1944.

a1

My father was on active duty aboard the San Jacinto (foreground aircraft carrier) when this photo was taken. I remember him as a young man, remembering also transferred memories… physical and emotional, memories flowing like water. I was thinking about DNA as well as the memory within, and of, water. In the back of my mind I was thinking about Berta Cáceres. The work she did with water. Her radiant identification with Mother Earth, the Mothership, and the water running through Her veins.

Berta Caceres stands at the Gualcarque River in the Rio Blanco region of western Honduras where she, COPINH (the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) and the people of Rio Blanco have maintained a two year struggle to halt construction on the Agua Zarca Hydroelectric project, that poses grave threats to local environment, river and indigenous Lenca people from the region.green ball 6green ball 6green ball 6

10 Comments
February 22, 2016

How We Listened

after

Have you forgotten how we listened

spectral

to what was not being said.

colourful dream

The sun and the night both shining in Autumn.

sepia4

Shining upon what is concealed

after

& beneath the crossroads,

this is not d

a deeply buried wind

ruin 3

streaming through the empty house.

after

Dedicated to my (late) brother Larry, whose birthday is 2/22, who cried over his black fish floating belly up, who slipped climbing the crabapple tree & gashed his belly open with a nail. We passed through the cage of black & white TV broadcasting one Friday late into the night and throughout the weekend until a funeral on Monday.

sepia4

My video poem concerning this event: https://vimeo.com/11304739

colourful dreamspiral 2

I think I found the spiral Xray online a couple of years ago. Of course , neither am I claiming any copyright credit for the photographs of J.F.K.’s funeral. A detail from a still photo of a performer riding a horse in my video poem is also in the mix. I will take some credit for that.

spiral 2

6 Comments
December 19, 2014

A Bolt of Black Cloth

9

I imagined a colour the density of funeral bunting,

new 10

A bolt of black cloth,

a singed songflaring

A sudden black waterfall quickly dropping six stories,

dales 17 new

Unrolled from a balcony,

dense nights

The beginning of a voyage,

fire lotq

Negotiating darkness.

flaring

My father shopped at Dales for paper bags full of groceries,

parkinglot

I waited in the car listening to the radio,

people who knowwaiting in the car 1

I tried to describe a song called Eve of Destruction,

q

He looked at me in the rear-view mirror,

r

Columns of black smoke rose above the Pacific Ocean,

spark 2a ring

Like poisonous vines,

the projector shining

Morse code blinking through the darkness,

waiting in the car 1

At night he came home as late as possible,

xxp

Then looking again into the rear-view mirror,

new 10

He repeated the name of the song,

‘Eve of Destruction.’

dales 17 new

I pictured a wooden bowl in my chest,

parkinglotthe projector shining

Smoothed and worn by water,

p

& Climbing the stairs into this language,

a ring

Gazed, longingly, into a rear-view mirror.

new 10dales 17 newxxr

8 Comments
November 28, 2014

Autumn, late

and helmet
I remember when she said,

I’m sorry to interrupt your relationship

With Bob Dylan.

this now

 

4 Comments
October 2, 2014

An Asymmetrical Drawing Lightly & Beyond

spontaneous sketch

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

Of

medium

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

Of

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

Of

with circlenew tomorrowpsd

8 Comments
August 18, 2014

Today

today a

Today you forget again

You stay with forgetting

(again)

Today you forget again

You stay with forgetting

(again)

You taste forgetting

today e

Again

You taste

Forgetting

today b

You taste forgetting

(again)

You stay with forgetting

(again)

today c

You forget forgetting

You taste forgetting

(again)

(again)

today d

You taste forgetting

You forget forgetting

today e

You taste forgetting

(again)

today a

Today

today b

you

today c

forget

today d

(again)

today e

16 Comments
August 10, 2014

1981 (The Phantom of Liberation)

phantom of

In 1981

The Phantom of Liberation

Paid me a visit

81 heads

Commanding

A sketch

twin egg

I obliged

Thinking that was all

That was all

There was to it

burn blur copy

Hello and goodbye

To the Phantom of Liberation

centre eye

But the Phantom

Must have said

Eat my body

blue monuments

I complied

Thinking that was all

That was all

There was to it

blue conte

Hello and goodbye

To the Phantom of Liberation

dream section

They found a foreign body

In my heart

And said it’s spread

To your brain

And your wings

new ore

I said I don’t have

Any wings

face of the phantom

They said I was covered with wings

Beating ferociously

Refusing to stop

And bothering the neighbours

geo2

I asked if I should move

To a cemetery

something

They wanted to know

If I was trying to escape

Liberation

Or the conditions that require

Liberation

intersection

I listened to their question

Thinking that was all

That was all

There was to it.

the conditions

14 Comments
June 21, 2014

Inner and Outer Worlds Permeate Poetic Pulse and Melody

afternoon in paradise 3afternoon in paradise 4.afternoon in paradise 5

The streetcar stops beneath a railroad overpass

Snow still on the ground.

Melody stirring a pot of homemade soup

In the apartment she shares with her mother

Near the courthouse.

afternoon in paradise 7afternoon in paradise 8

A scratchy sofa

Something forgettable on TV

afternoon in paradise 6

I pass through her kindness like a boat cut loose.

afternoon in paradise 11

How can I prevent

What I don’t know will happen?

afternoon in paradise 13

Her eyelids lower

Contemplating a surreal image,

Her laughter like the northern lights,

Her smile

A Maya Deren film.

afternoon in paradise 9

 Jealous ghosts

Lay in wait on darkened country roads

Rising against immortal young gods

Speed-yearning into the future.

paradise

Does one simple gesture reconfigure a timeline?

Take the second bowl. The cauldron of vocation.

Leave town with her though you hardly know her.

Study poetry or dowsing,

Wash the ghosts away,

Listen to the northern lights sing into her,

Singing blacktopped roads into a charcoal labyrinth.

afternoon in paradise 1with detail bwith detail bwith detail bwith detail b

18 Comments
May 14, 2014

that time you were young

yyy

Remember

that time you were young

and you saw something

you almost forgot

and the faster you ran

the slower you arrived

yyyy

Van Gogh

was a bit like that

yyyyy

t

 

8 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

A

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