More numerous indeed...

Just stopping by with a brief post, and tipping my metaphorical hat to this blog that I have been ignoring for a while now....    In the last year I have found many near at a hand who are closet unbelievers... May we all raise our hands and be counted....

Seeing beauty in the universe

This is a video I particularly liked from YouTube, though as a naturalist I might quibble with the term spirituality. I take that to mean that feeling of being in the moment, a part of,  feeling in unison with what is around you. If you click through and watch this on YouTube itself, you can read the text the videographer has put up alongside it.

Don Lowe - Singer Songwriter - Brand New Cadillac

Another song I am liking a lot these days

 

Pigeon holes and Platitudes

People love platitudes. I'm fond of a few myself. Just check the memes floating around Facebook and other social networks. Platitudes and pigeonholes make us relax. Reality, not so much.

In general people prefer that disturbing realities fold their wings neatly, then duck politely into a sturdy square box with a lid, out of sight - a box that keeps its contents in check - so things can't pop out and flop around in plain sight. Otherwise people might start questioning their faith in a happy world where a good-guy god reigns and where everyone who needs soon has.

We reach for platitudes for comfort.. Nonsense like: "Everything happens for a reason. Everything works out for the best."  Tell that to an antelope being torn apart by hyenas. The messy truth is this: the living world runs on death. Hamburgers, salmon steak and chicken wings have all been ripped untimely from beasts who weren't through with them yet. Don't let the grocery store's neat Styrofoam trays and pristine shrink wrap fool you. Life eats other life in order to continue. Purportedly this is the invention of a gentle loving god.

People too end in unseemly ways. They get blown up, burnt to cinders, have limbs severed, are mangled inside car wrecks,  beaten to death, starve in slow bony collapse, ache with suicidal despair, have their bleeding guts poured out on indifferent ground before laughing witnesses.

It's just easier for the more comfortable branches of the human race not to think about it much. We stuff this information into a little square pigeonhole and we paste a few decorator platitudes on top of it.

This enables us to buy expensive designer sneakers and iPhones for our kids without guilt. It enables us to live as extravagantly as possible believing we deserve it all, or to happily enjoy whatever small pleasures we can find while rationalizing away the world's ubiquitous cruelty and inequity.

This philosophical slight of hand makes it possible to have lunch once in a while. And after all, if you have lunch - you might as well savor every bite....

Bon appetite.

-- Mad Mar (Mistryel) Walker
originally written April 9, 2002 & updated in 2013. 

Location location location

 A cactus has been lurking silently in the backroom of this residence for as long as we have lived here. It was a gift from a former friend just before moving here. The damn thing lived on and on - longer than the friendship which gave way and finally collapsed under the weight of unfulfilled expectation. I rarely do the expected thing, or the polite thing. Some people want me to conform

 It didn't bother the cactus though at least not for many years. But even a cactus requires attention in the form of light and water once in a while. The blinds were opened, The pot was behind a pile of books. It didn't get water and the sun shone on and on. I forgot it to death. It happens. I just watered it though it is pale and brown. Just in case there is a tiny spark left. You never know.

.

Instrumental epiphany at the Irish Cultural Center

For quite a few years now I had been playing a big red guitar called Henry, pictured left. He was a flame top Kort guitar. I thought the finish was pretty and the tone was nice, Fishman pickups etc. But lately I had been feeling like playing and singing at the same time had become a struggle. I discovered why recently.

I went down to the Greater Danbury Irish Cultural Center on July 31 to play in a new Wednesday night music open mic there, hosted by Bob & Felicia of the Blue Yodels. It was right here in town, perfect location for me and I couldn't think of a good excuse not to try it out. When I got there though - I kinda had second thoughts. I hadn't played anywhere in ages, and had never been in the place before, had no idea what it was like. So decided I'd leave Henry in the trunk - just watch the show and check out the lay of the land. Maybe play next time.

That was my plan anyway. Plans often go awry. Bob chatted along in his best professional host / MC way and pretty soon he'd talked me into doing a couple songs. So I used his Blueridge acoustic. Wow. It was a different experience - so comfortable and easy after Henry.

When I went home, I took a look at the shape of my guitar with the image of that Blueridge in my head. Henry was kinda thick-bodied, and thick-wasted . And I am a short and short-armed finger picking player. Getting my fat arm over Henry's bulk pressed him into my brisket right where I needed to expand to get air to sing. It was a no win situation and I was wrestling with something just a bit too big. As I practiced afterwards, It just didn't feel right anymore.

 On Friday I went down to the guitar center and traded Henry in on a Luna Oracle Dragonfly, a cutaway like Henry. (Now I know some folks like to have a collection of instruments. I like to travel light and I can only play one at a time. A trade-in deal made economic sense as well.)  My Dragonfly, she's just a little thinner, has a more pinched in waist to allow my arm a clear path to the strings, and also a thinner neck and finger-board built for my small hands. As an added bonus she has an on-board tuner. Woohoo!

Busy No 2 at SCAN this week

Busy No 2: (on the bottom right) is on display at SCAN this week at the library. Here it is nicely grouped with two other works. I am thrilled they took it. It has never actually been shown before....

Poem: What is aka Schema

Pajama Party on the Wall

The little painting on the upper right, Pajama Party I "unicorned"  and kitched up especially for the Unicorn show at Motlen Java. It's oil on canvas board.  For more on this one either scroll down or http://artsattic.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-uncertain-path-of-particular.html

Oh the weeds

Life is full of weeds, things that pop up in every conceivable spot taking the place of what you meant to be there...

Sometimes the weeds are charming, flowered. Sometimes thorny or just quick and stubborn. Opportunists all.

We try to garden as best we can in this life - which is the only one we're fairly sure we've got.

The photo is an empty planter left in the garden last fall. It has a drain hole in the bottom and the weeds just grew up through it.

How to ruin an unfinished painting

This is the tale of how an unfinished painting with possibilities turned in to a waste of paint, kitsch and silly. Instead of throwing in the trash I put it on display. Silly me.  It's an oil painting of mine (currently named pajama party) that started out as a village in the mountains with a clock tower:

I just felt it need something. So when there was a call for paintings after Chagal I added some floating people. See below, for the three floaters.

Then I thought the clock tower had to go, then a friend insisted  I needed to take out the bottom figure - and I thought she was right... so I did but then
I had a dilemma - it really needed something else but I had no idea what.   And it sat like this for a long time.  Then the wonderful eccentrics and the local coffee shop put out a call for unicorn paintings for a summer show. One night after I had gone to bed - I sat bolt upright, went to the painting and put in the unicorn in white. Added the colors and the pajamas the next day.  I don't know. It's tacky. But somehow it works.  At least that is what I think now.....  When it comes home from the unicorn show - who knows what might happen to it... perhaps the circular file.....
AND:
Here it is on the wall at the unicorn show:

Poem for April 10 - Teamwork

TEAMWORK

CAST:
1 Duck. Drake. Aggressive Moscovy.
Too stringy and tough for stew.
1 Hunting Hound. Old and Friendly.
Companion. Sent Sniffer. Retriever.

PLOT:
Oscar, the Duck patrols the perimeter.
Attacks intruders relentlessly. Bites their ankles.
Beats them back with his flapping wings.

Nellie the Dog watches.
Bays or barks out the alarm
to alert Grandpa.

Later they rest, still on lookout
in the warm afternoon sun.
Near, but not too near.


NOtE: the photo is a family picture of the actual Oscar and Nellie who belonged to my Grandfather Walker. My mother recalls being afraid to get out of the car and having to run for the house when Oscar was on patrol. Not sure if this is a poem or just sort of flash nonfiction.... Not sure I care which either....

Poem for April 4 - Slightly Irregular Apocalypse Sale!

SLIGHTLY IRREGULAR APOCALYPSE SALE

Six bucks a bag
of our unwieldy woes
No looking back, no excuses
- everything goes!

   Economic instability,
   colliders building to infinity.
   Famine, flood or fire,
   entropic flat tires.
   Wormholes, black holes,
   comet-born plague,
   missiles from the Kremlin,
   precise justice from the Hague?
   Lab DNA morphing,
   death by excess endorphins
   Killer bees, disappearing bees, alien pods,
   anti-matter implosions, a zombie Steve Jobs.
   String theory unraveling, oil for free
   a bang or a whimper - say will it be
   by fire or ice, a snarl or a moan?
Predictions are futile so leave me alone....

                                       -- MM Walker
------------------------------------------
The prompt was to use an Ian Banks title - http://www.napowrimo.net/2013/04/day-four/

Poem for April 3 - SHARED SPACES

MM and  TieDown the helicopter test dog share a bit of lawn.

NaPoWriMo #3  (am a day late on this one) and I am ignoring the prompt.... In the picture I share a bit of lawn with TieDown. He was named after a helicopter test called a "tie-down." This pup showed up during such a test where my Father worked.  He came home with Dad and lived all his years with us. He has nothing to do with this poem really, though the picture of this shared spot inspired it.

SHARED SPACES:
Like wine, friendships age
      could be perfection or vinegar.
Sometimes what is not done wins a friend:
     An absence of too loud chat and shrill barks
     A lack of yanking this or that when in proximity,
     A lack of poking pointing fingers here or there.
The end of a friend can be that too:
     what is not done, what is not said
     what never comes up, what is omitted
     the little lawn of the heart overrun with weeds.

Poem for April 2 - HIT THE BRICKS

This is NaPoWriMo #2 - the prompt was to write a poem based on a lie. Like all my poems it is subject to change. This started with the moon/green cheese lie and grew more true.... or not.

HIT THE BRICKS

The high moon is pale as a ruined stockbroker.
The earth is blue as chapter 11.
The sea's a flood of worthless greens.
On the day after, everything will be alright,
or everything will collapse to chaos.
Nothing will ever be usual or unusual.

The key is in the wrong ignition for a timely get-away
and the spin is this: the tires are deflated and
the emergency checklist has a forever stamp of disapproval.
The half smile is a tiny light in my right eye. In my left eye
is the tell - a tiny twitch. Call and I'll show my hand.
Which hand did you want? Both are on the wheel
but it's too late to drive far.

-- mm walker

Poem for April 1 - Unmaking

NaPoWriMo #1  - The prompt this morning was to write a poem with the same first line as another poem. For my first line I chose a first line from a Robert Frost poem called Fragmentary Blue.    NOTE: This poem is subject to change!  

Unmaking

"Why make so much of fragmentary blue?"
when a sky could just as well be
yellow or peach on the long curve
of another day's horizon.

And if the world were different
if what happened had not
if this swatch of sky were onyx
or vermilion or sienna

or scribbled with crayons,
or if a particular bee fancied
a different flower, a daffodil
instead of a blood root

then this tangle of happenstance
might have unraveled quietly like a worn rug,
left to us our fragmentary peace
in another hue, not blue. not blue.

-- MM Walker

NOTE: the unmaking I had in mind was the unmaking of the Sandy Hook massacre.  


.

Poem A Day - NAPOWRIMO 2013 starts tomorrow

Hello Internet denizens - yes this site will be participating in the NAPOWRIMO 30 poems in 30 days challenge this year - I might not make it. Might or might not. Only time will tell!

If it's a go, that means a new poem, written to a specific writing prompt, will be posted here daily during April.  I've done this challenge during 2009 & 2010.  After a two year hiatus I am ready for the challenge this year! So tomorrow - we're off!  We'll be filling the empty box of April with poems. Or a kitty. Whichever!