The King of Marigold - Mixed Media on Canvas

 

Here is a (mostly) finished mixed media piece featuring my December 2010 poem The King of Marigold. All paper materials were sourced from thrifted 1960s and 1970s science textbooks and indoor decor and plant magazines. I typed the poem with a typewriter, scanned, and reprinted it on several kinds of thrifted paper before settling on this one. I am still toying with the idea of adding some thunderclouds in the background or a frame element to the "window" of the room into which the viewer is peering. This one conjures a vivid memory of lying in the cocoon of my bed in my studio apartment while the world sped past on Speer Boulevard. 

Everything Was Right - Mixed Media on Canvas

I recently completed another mixed media interpretation of a 2009 poem of mine entitled "Everything Was Right". The materials were sourced from used books: the anatomical illustrations were found in a badass textbook circa 1964, and the majority of the greenery came from a 1970s volume simply entitled Ferns. 

I typed the poem on a thrifted typewriter before enlarging and printing onto aged (thrifted!) paper. I upgraded my tools to cut with more precision and learned to work faster to lay everything down. Making art is solitary but fulfilling. I plan to complete 1-2 more of these in time for them to be shown in my studio's gallery group show in November, and have my sights on a newer poem for one. I also find the reincarnation of these old works to be quite full-circle. 

A Deceptive Tonic - Mixed Media on Canvas

I have never been compelled to get up at a poetry reading and present my writing as a live performance.  I have always drawn more parallels to the visual arts, since my feelings and thoughts tend to present themselves in the format of mental images, places, or memories (some not my own). I have been greatly influenced by the surrealist and transcendentalist movements, especially in my earlier writing. 

Recently, I had the opportunity to take part in a group art show at my studio workspace, a community of 80 artists sharing the space of two industrial warehouses in Denver. Collage immediately came to mind as a medium for my poetry to be displayed rather than performed, with the added bonus of conferring some of the imagery that I see in my mind when writing. 

I chose a piece I wrote back in 2009 entitled "A Deceptive Tonic", partly for it's brevity and stichic stanza format, and partly for it's imagery and the double meaning it contains: the word tonic can mean the root chord in tonal music and the resolution of most progressions. A tonic can also be defined as a medicinal substance to restore health. In both instances, the word can apply to the experience about which I was writing (love/loss). In regards to musical meaning, the progression was deceptive and failed to resolve pleasantly in the way the ear expected. And for the medicinal meaning, the tonic turned out to be bitter and poisonous instead of life-giving. 

My intention is to present more of my writing in this format in the future, and improve my visual presentation in the process. 

Ailanthus Altissima

We know our place 

as conjurors of levity 

it's misfits together

striving for insanity and kissing 

every comet in the velvet veil

enduring effigies of rose onyx 

in a Victorian menagerie 

My heart had only been broken 

so I could know you

I have no fear of my mind or my talent

I forge a path through the backyard

invaded and undone by Ailanthus altissima

allowing a lashing from the overgrowth on my skin 

knowing this isn't all that we are
knowing that my parents raised me for love
knowing this city is a twirling jewel 

in her wisdom she blesses us and 

we raise her up

this city of cosmic strength

this hub of joy

a timeless beauty

28 April 2023

For One I Loved Before I Knew Him

In memory of youth and inexperience
I swing a creaking door to a vacant room
In my mind's eye, in this perfect house 
the blazing canopy of sunset spooks me

I am boxed in with the weight of my jealousy
my longing and my inability to consider the now
instead of the then and the will be
not to mention the might and the should

In this maze of evening, I am 

captivated by the image of your face

with which I have met only five times

It is familiar, kind, and lovelier than I

Only with the recognition of that
which now I know now to be love
can I inhale both 

cool and deep

This dawning assuages and startles me
my knees wobbly weak
and my lips on yours

but only in my mind

Seven

I am yours, out of time
You are mine with a fierceness
that is stronger than the
powerful humans that we are,
prophets burdened by the
talent we must reveal
the Love we must accept

The hatred you, my King, were beaten with
locked you in a room that taught you
your dreams
are a nightmare
I am not that fear
I am human, and my purpose
out of time, is

to be your carrier when you are ill
to be your fighter when you are weak
to squash my ignorant ego
to fly weightlessly above the
images I dreamt as a tiny child,
aware and confident that I was
conceived in love

Believe in our infinite knowledge and insight
in our hearts we are one
We heard them beating in celebration
We are the earth and the axis
We are the infinite and the affected,
born from the nectar of life that chose
you for me

27 September 2013

Clarkson

This street, my Clarkson street,
I know you are not pristine
You are dirt and glass and tall grass
You are 1888 and 1892
You are self-realization and unconditional love
But I have seen you slam yourself to the ground
I have heard you scream without thought
And fire gunshots into the city sky
I believe in the collective whole, we scaffolds to masterpiece
I have hope, I am colorblind
I am music and the beggars story
I am bounded by Mount Zion's love and the comfort of a warm meal
You have given me my life in one longitude
You are my backbone and my love's resting place

11 August 2013

My Man Oh My Oh Me

I find myself here, alone in body, and your name sounds like a horn. I busy myself with jewelry and things, try to focus on the tangible: the knobby carpet on my toes, the smell of a shirt, the grinning lamp. But as my eyes begin to lid I am flustered by a stirring like dry leaves, small shards that once thrived, green, in my mind. The mind loves powerfully, only kept alive by the mechanical motion of the heart.

You stir in me and art again has meaning, beauty has purpose. You and I, the fire, the whiskey, the dawn through the stained glass. We drag a chair across the floor to sit in the light. My dress is periwinkle, not black. You look at me, I love how you look at me. You say it's my eyes, for me it is all of you, a man like I've never seen one. Oasis child, born into a man, don't I know you better than the rest? I shake and I am not scared. I jump at your hands and the falling coals in the fireplace. I know this sunrise will end but I dive into the days, the weeks, with eyes closed and hands tied.

When I hear those songs again, I feel choked with need. Never glancing back, I am being pushed and prodded forward to find you tomorrow. Ever since our hands shook, I am carried, a doll in a curious child's hand. I have things to share with you: the songs I promised, our shared sadnesses, the deep joy I find in you. I will burrow in your heart, where you thought nothing could root, I will warm you and rock you gently. I have the antidote to your fears, I am not those things. I am breathing, swallowing the need, and attempting to accept the silence you have given to me.

I promise, we will never grow old.

22 February 2013

In Isolation

I.

Fitfully, I turn my brass key and lurch forward into bedlam and
my right is my left and you are beside me and without me all at once
streaming from me abundantly, a spring untapped by hands of man
you stab me with feathery eyes though you do not touch my fumbling skin

And I think that I love you but my fear of the words hinders me
turning me to salt or stone or an ungainly mixture of both
there is a pulsing burn inside these ribs of bronze and
I feel more than I care to, buckling in a failing fire

Look forth, kindly, with your opal eyes, for
though I cannot possess you with my hands
my deepest being cradles yours gently, a
sphere of calcite or shell or unbendable bone

In the pasture of my minds eye, you melt into the flowing green sod
a creature for which love knows no bounds
but I curl, carelessly, an arched child denouncing fear but
suffering more than she can stomach, being human

II.

I shout over you, a barreling bull whose
eyes see nothing but know everything
and then we are slow and conjoined
your breath accelerating and I see
you are uselessly running in place

I lurk in the gloom; you are fighting a steady battle
and the mirror and tile are your allies
the bottle abandoned and the intake reversed
your knees touch down, then hands,
and torso, cold on the carpet

I am in motion, terrified and in love
asking for your help though you have forgotten why you came
and your sobs wrack me like a strange child’s cries
echoing down the hallway, into the void
I grip your hand and my words burst forth

Three hours pass in sedation, and
you turn for me in slumber
In our reverie, we are hungry
so we consume and discount our every want
I recline with aching shoulder on fire and

My memory cannot ease the undying sting nor
the damage your absence will cause me

17 May 2011

On The Loss Of Time

I have enjoyed this, playing house
going to bed with our hair wet
breathing as one animal and
waking in a silent embrace

I was fed by coffee and the
time to read and make words
I padded about, barefoot
wearing your shirt and my tired eyes

I thank you for sharing your
towel and your toothbrush
your lone pillow and the
milk and sugar

I see two houses, your belongings, and
your growing anger

I did not enjoy the morning you
pretended to break the dishes
in the communal sink
smiling with your eyes closed

I was bent shapeless by
your tears, your hairy struggles
Your unrealized ambitions
removed my backbone

I first swallowed fear at
the ominous contents of
your skull, pumping iron and
burning through women ad infinitum

I soldiered on, folding the
laundry and breathing
a lungful in
a lungful out

I was constant as the ticking clock
until you could not hear me
even as I kicked and screamed
on every godforsaken hour

Remember the fervor
with which I persisted in
loving you like my art or
a wonderfully infected child

And in the end, for that is
where we are, I leave
without a word, for your
pupils hold nothing but acid rage

I hope I am still tangible
hanging on your wall
hovering in the haze and
melting in the candelabra

When all this falls away
I do not know if your hair
will be long or short or
thick or thin but

I do know you will be
unable to remain numb and
the heavy tide will rush in,
an angry mother

Do not forget the sound of my alarm
my grabbing hands and my kiss
the poems that you wrote in me and
my spirit that you broke in two

Hold tightly to these for
they fade as our beauty fades

I see five years, your broken glasses, and
my rotting love

1 February 2011

Speaking Against The Sun

His heart was disconcertingly dark tethered to the bark of the
last fig tree and crying bitter tears but I could not navigate
within its minutiae and lost in its damaged lobes my sight left me
wandering in his city of pain for the mornings were most bleak and
he was compulsively unsettled scrubbing cast-iron and porcelain and
wildly foraging in the sandbox of his past seeking his anger his delirium
his reason for debilitation or a pill for the unending burn so
I threw him a line screaming without profit and gave of my tears my water
any resource to save and be saved and in my passion my sweat ceased
my voice ran dry much to my curiosity for I had fancied myself
a wellspring of unending love but the sparrow that once
gleamed golden in me was erased as I buckled in the silver sand
but in my absence he flowered laying down behind me and
clasping my dirty-cold neck his arm over my pallid remains and
through my stale eyelids I see the horizon flash green as
the dusk dives into the mountain and the stars beat 'round the waxing moon
for a dreamless night must always follow a trying day

12 January 2011