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
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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.  


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