Means of Expression
I have two means of telling a story–words and art. Here are a few of my retablos :
Jugetes (Toys) 
Santa Cecilia (Patron Saint of Poets and Musicians)
Self Portrait
Hidden Kiss 
Sunrise Madonna 
The Circus
Our Lady of Notions
Ganesha
Homage to Picasso
Rainy Season
H
Macho
The Prompt: Express Yourself!!! Do you love to dance, sing, write, sculpt, paint, or debate? What’s your favorite way to express yourself, creatively?
With all of its sounds
spilled out,
someone else’s sounds
echo around it.
The space inside of it
is broken, too.
Only the constant rain
seeks to fill it.
————-
Falling Practice
Twice on the stairs last week
and once in the kitchen.
Lately, these falls
have been coming in threes.
Tonight in the dark, I tripped
over the low metal bench beside the hot tub.
Then a loud bang sent me searching
to find the heavy husk fallen from the palm tree.
I do not venture out alone again,
but sit on the patio
in the light of my laptop,
hoping to escape the third fall.
Your face on the screen turns green
from the reflection of the string
of Chinese lanterns
as we succumb to hard truths.
I fell in love with you so quickly,
but even all these falls
have not taught me how
to fall out of love with you.
The Prompt: Howl at the Moon—“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” — Allen Ginsberg Do you follow Ginsberg’s advice — in your writing and/or in your everyday life?
Dream, Fri. Oct 18, 2013
We were at a booth in a café. It was a huge room with booths on every side and each booth had a clock, or at least I thought they did. I don’t think I ever looked. Our alarm started going off and there was no way to turn it off. It was by me and I tried and tried but couldn’t get it off. I said I was just going to unplug it, but Patti said perhaps it was timed with all the other clocks at tables and then it wouldn’t match. I said couldn’t they just reset it when we left? Someone agreed, but still we didn’t unplug it and it went on and on and on. Very annoying. Our booth came equipped with a little dog. It was tiny and light with long very curly white hair that was in loose corkscrew very long ringlets. It was so adorable and affectionate. I held it most of the time. It had legs like wires that went straight down..very skinny…and it jumped a lot. When the waitress came, we told her about the alarm and she said yes, she’d noticed that it was going off…but she didn’t do anything about it. We told her how cute the little dog was and she said yes…but then it seemed like it was the little dog who had the alarm that was going off. We ordered and afterwards I was wanting a dessert but thought I shouldn’t order one. Patti was to my right and I suddenly realized she was eating a very rich chocolate dessert—a sort of fudge flan or very moist slippery cake that was hot with a hot fudge sauce over it. She offered me a taste. It was a very small rectangle…not very big…but I tasted it and immediately said I’d have one, too. It was incredible. Still, the alarm went off. It was driving me crazy! Then I woke up and realized it was my own bedside alarm. I reached up with my eyes still closed and tried to turn it off, but couldn’t find the control. Finally I picked it up, opened my eyes and found the control. It was 8:10. The alarm had been going off for 10 minutes!!!!
My interpretation:
I found this dream in a folder on my computer. I have no memory at all of having dreamed it, and perhaps that distance makes it easier for me to interpret it. In a few weeks, I turn 67. For the past year, I’ve thought repeatedly about death and the fact that if I’m lucky, I probably have only 30 years left. For some reason, that awareness is very stressful. I feel a need to finish everything I’ve started and never completed. Earlier, that consisted of a lot of sorting, construction of storage spaces and weeding out of the contents of my house. That effort is ongoing. What also happened, however, is that I have an incredible drive to get everything published that has been lying around in file cabinets for many many years as well as a need to write new work and somehow disseminate it. My blog is part of that effort, as are my efforts to get all my books on Amazon and Kindle.
Seeing this dream as if for the first time, I clearly see that theme of time running out coupled by a sense of alarm that I need to do something about it. The little dog shows the attractive quality (adorable and affectionate) of finally dealing with all these loose ends—(note all his corkscrew hairs). Those wiry little legs that kept him always active certainly reflect the urgency I’ve been feeling to write write write.
One aspect of this awareness in my real life for a time consisted of my fear that I will stop breathing. This often gets me up gasping at night to run outside to try to breathe. For some reason I haven’t had any of these panic attacks since I started writing every morning. What I interpreted as a growing fear of death and a dread of ceasing to exist was perhaps a fear of not living and creating while I am alive.
I think the interplay between my sister Patti and me in the dream reflects a number of things. One is a difference in our approaches to life. I think in a way, she is more of a rule-follower and since she was my immediate pattern for most of my earlier life, I think a part of me feels this same need, but this is coupled with an equal and stronger need to create my own path in a direction unique from my two older and very competent sisters and to break a few rules to do so. At a very early age, much as I admired and imitated my sisters, I felt the need to prove myself. To find something to know that they didn’t already know. I found this route when I started venturing out at an early age to find new ground where they had not gone before me. It led me first into the homes of friends and strangers where I saw life being acted out in a manner entirely different from my own home. The road led further—to summer camp where I was a stranger to all and vice versa. I loved being the stranger. In choosing a college, I fell back on the reliability and comfort of attending the same school my sister had attended, but in my Jr. year I took my first big leap—a trip around the world on World Campus Afloat. That early adventure in seeing dozens of new and strange cultures set my life path. I’ve been traveling ever since and have been living in Mexico for the past 13 years.
I believe this dream depicts the sense of urgency I’ve had my entire life to “do” something with experience. My art and writing allow me to turn off the alarm for the hours in which I practice them. That small dessert might symbolize the rewards of doing what I need to do to do so.
P.S. An interesting insight I have had just as I started to post this: (And, interestingly enough, wordpress will not accept my blog entry. Perhaps it is insisting I add this P.S. before it does so.) I just got back to Mexico from a visit to the states wherein I visited my oldest sister Betty who is now in the depths of the world of Alzheimer’s. While I was there, she seemed increasingly distressed by the fact that she can no longer communicate, but one day as we were sitting in the living room portion of her small apartment in a managed care Alzheimer’s wing, she motioned to the middle of the floor and said, “Look a that cute little white thing there—that fluffy little white dog!” This was the first incidence that I know of of her actually hallucinating visually, and for some reason it popped into my mind in relation to the little dog in my dream. All of these images—of our dreams as well as our daily life—remind us to live while we can and to do what is most important to us. In my case as well as my sister’s—to communicate. Too late for her, although she continues to try. Not too late for me.
P.S.S. By the way, the instant I completed the above P.S., the wordpress page that had continued to not allow me to post this blog entry flashed the message: What do you want to post? Text? Picture? I chose text and and you have just read it.
The prompt: Freudian Flips. Do you remember a recent dream you had? Or an older one that stayed vivid in your mind? Today, you’re your own Freud: Tell us the dream, then interpret it for us! Feel free to be as serious or humorous as you see fit, or to invent a dream if you can’t remember a real one.
Note in response to this prompt: (When I think of dreams, I think of Jung, not Freud, and he continues to influence my thoughts and actions much more than Freud ever did.)
Okay. Finished!!! The picture is the last thing you’ll see.
The Prompt today is: Rare Medium. Describe a typical day in your life — but do it in a form or in a medium you’ve rarely — if ever – used before. If you’re a photoblogger, write a poem. If you’re a poet, write an open letter. If you’re a travel blogger, write a rant. (These are all examples — choose whatever form you feel like trying out!)
This is a hard one for me because I do poetry or prose or art or photography or rants every day, so what is left? I guess I’ll have to resort to one of the things I am the worst at: drawing. This I do not do well, but I will try. Come back in a few hours and you’ll see the result.
I traveled for 15 hours yesterday so bear with me, but please do come back!!! (Gnashing teeth because I really do want to write a poem so badly. Will right win out or will norm?????)
Three hours later:
Things I had forgotten before I drew this horrible picture
—How hard it is to draw a straight line.
—How hard it is to draw a curved line
—How hard it is to draw a crooked line.
—That an 8.5X11 inch drawing was going to be reduced to a point where it is hard to make out detail. Come to think of it, this might be an advantage. Never mind.
—Why I gave up drawing long long ago
—How humbling it is to display something you do poorly for the world to see.
—That it is actually kind of fun to color
—That it is very very hard to color near the edge of a page.
—That art of any kind, no matter how poor the end result, causes you to enter into a time warp.
Four hours later:
Now that I have my sketch scanned, converted to jpeg, straightened and ready to go, my blog absolutely refuses to accept it. I think perhaps I’m not meant to share my lack of sketching prowess with the world. I’ll try one more time, and then give up.
Half hour later: Okay, I’ll try twice and then give up. Rescanning the picture.
Ten minutes later: Why is it taking so long to scan this picture when it normally takes a minute or less????
Okay, here it is. Once I actually saw it on the blog, I decided to move it from first position to last. Remember. I cannot do 2 dimensional art. I disavow any responsibility for or pride in the below image:
Those are my three kids–Squeak, Frida and Diego. Squeak is a cat and Frida and Diego are dogs. Yes, I really did have to kill a scorpion I found in a drawer first thing this morning. Yes, that is a volcano in the background. (It is saying, “Look at Me.”) Not possible to read in this small version. No, I do not have any groceries in my house. No, my studio is not really this messy. It is 100 times worse! No, I am not Alice in Wonderland. The “Drink Me” glass contains a smoothie. Thankfully, I’d left one in the freezer as I had none of the proper ingredients. Yes, once knew how to draw perspective but I haven’t the patience for it anymore.
This is absolutely the last drawing of mine you will ever see on this blog!!!!!
World like a White Stomach, Red Optional
My world is not round
and so it does not move in circles
like your world.
It is so small I stand above it, my head in space,
while a two-colored rainbow stretches out in my wake—
a straight line which is an echo
of my unbent trajectory into the universe.
Three navels has my world
for the three births it delivers us to:
into this world, within and out of it.
Each is an adventure more easily seen
in a straight world where everything
is not always repeating itself.
Here, fish swim out of the water.
Birds more commonly walk.
And in the distance, we see colors
not of our world.
Stop and go.
The green of earth.
The red that is only an option as we look away,
searching for the million worlds beyond.
The Daily Post Prompt: One day, your favorite piece of art — a famous painting or sculpture, the graffiti next door — comes to life. What happens next?
Dim Sum are little love poems shaped like a heart. I challenge every reader
to write one and send it to me! For the fun of it, I made mine into a chain of hearts.
Morning Metaphor
When you rise hours early
to stand in front of the window
and watch for the UPS truck,
I shift my dreaming over
to your warm pillow.
If you are a child,
I am a
cat.
The Computer
has become the new hearth
and heart of our home, now
glowing out in the darkness
long after we have moved
to the room next door
to try to sleep
in vain.
A Clock
on the wall of every room
speaks its midnight language
and intrudes into my dreams,
each one telling me I am
another hour closer
to leaving
you.
Chew the Train
A metaphor is a freight train
that gets us within 30 miles
of our final destination,
but we still have to catch a taxi to get all the way there.
And a simile is just a metaphor whose brakes have failed.
If we know that peanut butter
is like a circus on a tired tongue,
does it bring us any closer to the smell of peanut butter?
Elephants and sawdust
and sequined camisoles flavored
with the sweat of 100 performances?
Is that what peanut butter smells like?
Does it taste like candy apples
and too-bitter mustard
on stale buns
and hot dogs turned too long
upon the rollers of their grill?
Does peanut butter feel
like the unoiled bump of the Ferris wheel?
Does it sound like a calliope
or look like an ice cream cone?
Peanut butter is peanut butter.
I rest my case.
So how am I going to write a poem
without metaphors and similes?
How can I write verse
while telling the pure unadulterated truth?
How can I make you taste a poem
that is only itself?
How can I be Janis Joplin
when I’ve been taught to be Joni Mitchell?
A Rose is a Rose is a Rose,
said Gertrude Stein,
predating my insight
by a generation or two.
But this isn’t Paris,
and folks in Mexico
want a dollop of figurative language
in their poetry.
So let me say
that my mind is a busy beaver,
trying to fulfill this impossible task
of twenty little things.
I’m expected to imagine
how peanut butter sounds.
The sucking gumbo sound
of South Dakota mud
or thick mucus of a cold?
Anything but appetizing.
Ay, Caramba! you might say,
but if you were Australian,
you would say, “Don’t come the raw prawn on me, mate,”
and you would mean
“Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes,”
or “Don’t try to con me, man.”
So let me just say that peanut butter is made
by grinding peanuts so finely
that all the oil comes out
and it acquires the consistency of butter.
It isn’t like butter
nor is it butter.
It acquires the consistency of butter.
This is literal fact.
But to know the taste of peanut butter,
you will need to spread a bit upon a cracker
and have a taste, or grab a finger full.
What you will taste will be peanut butter.
The truth of it. Its reality.
And only then will I tell you
that literal truth doesn’t always tell
the whole truth.
My friend says
it is the peyote leached into the soil
the corn grows from
that gives Mexicans
such a remarkable sense of color.
The bright pigments of imagination
flood his canvasses.
His peyote dreams leak out into the real world
and wed it to create one world.
“Peyote dream” becomes its opposite—
a freight train taking us into the universal truth.
A larger reality.
This stalk of corn, this deer,
this head of amaranth,
all beckon, “Climb aboard.”
So when you bite into a taco
or tamale, when the round taste of corn
meets your tongue, and pleasure tries to flow
like a lumpy river down your throat,
look up at the poet standing in the shadows.
She’ll call herself Remi if you ask,
but do not ask. Instead, look deeper
into the shadows she wears around her like a cloak
and see that it is light that creates shadow.
See the many colors that create the black.
Follow where the corn beckons you to go––
into the other world of poetry and paint
and dance and music. Hot jazz with a mariachi beat.
Chew that train that takes you deeper. Hop aboard
the tamale express and you will ride into your
new life. It will be like your old life magnified
and lit by multicolored lights and the songs of merry-go-rounds
and when you bite into your taco, it will taste
like cotton candy and a snow cone
and your whole life afterwards will be a train that takes you nowhere
except back into yourself—a Ferris wheel
spinning you up to your heights and down again, with every turn,
the gears creaking “Que le vaya bien.”
I hope it goes well with you
and that you see the light
within the shadow
and the colors
in the corn.
Today’s prompt is called the “Twenty Little Poetry Projects,” and was originally developed by Jim Simmerman. Here are the twenty little projects themselves — the challenge is to use them all in one poem:
1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 