Cold

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Cold

Furniture leaves stick by stick.
His cold furnishings in the storehouse
while I put away my feelings
one by one.
He suggests we still be friends
while we wait for new friends to happen,
as though he’s drawing closer
as he pulls away.

I keep creeping closer to the truth
that lies
in eyes
cold.
Cold
eyes,
nothing written there.

His hand edges closer
on the seat between us.
Like a deaf-mute,
all communication
in his hands.

But those hands
don’t know all
my languages.

Handless bodies
in El Salvador
might think
my demands on them
less foolish.

My mother’s hands
drumming fingers
while she told a sleepy tale.
I was always in it,
in dark forests where the bears lived,
and although she acted
like she didn’t know it,
I was in the forest, lost,
expecting bears
while only drumming fingers
foretold the presence
of something
cold.

 

For dVerse Poets
To see the prompt, “A Little Repetition,” go HERE.

Helpful Friends

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Click on photos to enlarge.

Melody
Christine

On Monday, I took three friends visiting from La Manzanilla to see my show. After first viewing the pieces at length, Christine and Melody made good use of Eduardo’s dry paint brushes to carefully remove dust from crevices I’d missed. So touching, the care they exercised in restoring my art to its former pristine state.  I love these photos.

Pam expressed her appreciation for the show by buying one of the retablos. Since the gallery doesn’t take credit cards, Christine aided the process by loaning her the cash to buy it, as she can pay her back when they get back to La Manz. What a well-oiled machine. Mind you they asked if they could do this! They are both artists and accustomed to looking at fine details and took great pleasure, they assured me, in routing out those little dust particles.

Jaina Woman II, The Harvest: Art Challenge #2

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 Linda Levy  has challenged me to show one piece of my art per day for ten days. For my second presentation, I’m showing another retablo that has sold during my show which is still up at Jesus Lopez Vega’s Studio Gallery, #1 Rio Zula on Ocampo. There’s still time to see the rest of the show!

Jaina Woman II, The Harvest

Representations of Maya women occur more commonly as Jaina figurines than in any other medium. These Jaina figures represent two kinds of women, both archetypes of female behavior. One is a stately, courtly woman who is sometimes shown weaving; the second is a courtesan who appears with all sorts of mates, from Underworld deities to oversized rabbits. The imagery of both derives from Maya concepts of the moon, perceived as an erratic, inconsistent heavenly body, whose constantly changing character follows the monthly cycle of female menses. This is a Jaina woman of the first category: stately and courtly. I have presented her as representative of the harvest, which also produces the seeds for the next year’s bounty.

Wan Skies NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 6.

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Wan Skies

Why do the clouds obscure the sun
so we must cancel all our fun?
Pale skies are not the stuff of dreams
and contradict our pleasure schemes.
Wan days, dark nights close like a fist—
fond hopes of love and being kissed.
Lover thus fading into mist.

For NaPoWriMo Day 6 we were to write a poem where the first word of each line forms a famous quote or line from a poem. Read the first word of each line to see the quote.

Perpetuity

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Perpetuity

Let loose of our salacious world. It’s residue set free.
Ersatz news and angry words are not what you should see.
Trivial and idle minds feed on their sensation,
then spin their lives out caught up in a constant consternation.
We choose the world where we belong by what we hear and see,
and that’s the world we live in for perpetuity.

 

Prompt words today are residue, trivial, salacious, ersatz and belong.

Bougainvillea: FOTD Apr 6, 2022

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I keep forgetting about these white bougainvillea that spill over my wall at the lower end of the garden. Love their contrast with the more colorful varieties.

For Cee’s FOTD

Fire!!!!

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I actually took this photo from my yard. We were burning off the spare lot below me which was totally overgrown. This was a number of years ago. This is the same lot I’ve now made into a little park. I think the flames look like a goddess with an elaborate headdress riding an elephant.

For CFFC: Fire

Dance of the Snake Woman (Art Challenge # 1)

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Dance of the Snake Woman

I’ve been nominated by Linda Levy to post a piece of my art each day for ten days. This first selection is one of the pieces in my present show that has been marked SOLD. Unfortunately, I had a terrible time getting a photo of it as it was in a frame with glass over the front and most of the photos had reflected images of other pieces hanging on the wall across from it. In this photo, I managed to get a shot with nothing except myself reflected in the glass. Just for the fun of it, I left my hands. An explanation of the piece is below. With the frame, I believe it was approximately 20 ” square.

Dance of the Snake Woman

In many cultures, the snake functions as a messenger between man and the gods or the conscious and unconscious minds. Number seven is the number of connection as well as the end result of adding numbers 3 and 4, two other numbers of special significance to me. The music box plays “A Little Night Music”—a serenade of sorts.

This piece is about connection to the world as well as one’s own nature. Movement and grounding are of equal importance, as is maintaining a keen eye, creative inspiration and practice, be it in the word of art, dance, music, photography, writing or human interaction. Each of these symbols of the universal truths of the world has a personal significance in my life, as well. My own image was captured in the glass of this piece as I took the picture. It turned out to be appropriate, I think.

The central image is the figure of a woman carved from wood by my husband Bob. It was part of a totem-like carving that had four figures, each standing supported by or supporting another one it a vertical column. In the move to Mexico, it broke into four pieces and although I originally intended to repair it, I later decided to make a collaborative piece out of each figure. Since my husband died shortly before our projected move to Mexico, it has been our last collaboration after 14 years of doing collaborative work together.

The snake extensions and all of the other collage elements were added by me.


Here is a view of the entire piece, reflections and all.

Coin Flip

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Coin Flip

I always knew that our love would be dicey.
With you sea lion slippery, piquant and spicy,
your imposition into my life
was bound to cause turmoil and possibly strife.

But you brought excitement and offered a piece
of pleasure that lasted devoid of surcease.
Both sides of the coin I was willing to share,
watching the disc as it spun in the air.

Heads you were up and tails you were down—
one side slightly clouded, the other a clown.
The cusp of your mood I could certainly bear
for the promise of future bright times we would share.

Until that last coin toss when you spun away
with no possibility of a next play—
your coin sitting silent upon a high shelf
while I learned to toss the coin for myself.

Prompt words today are sea lion, imposition, piquant and piece.

Syncopated Poesy

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Syncopated Poesy

An iamb becomes a trochee and an anapest a dactyl.
Spondees get less pointed and  the pyrrhics turn more tactile.
Syncopated Poetry turns everything around.
Loud words get hushed down and the quiet words pick up sound.
“By the shores of Gitcheegoomie” loses all its zing.
That’s what comes from meddling with a verse’s swing.

 

The Daily Spur post for the day is syncopate. In case you’ve forgotten, below are the metrical feet of poetry: iamb ul, trochee lu, dactyl luu, anapest uul, spondee //, pyrrhic uu

Syn·co·pate:to displace the beats or accents in (music or a rhythm) so that strong beats become weak and vice versa. Or, to shorten (a word) by dropping sounds or letters in the middle, as in symbology for symbolology, or Gloster for Gloucester.