The Artists:
The "Blood, Fertility & Magic" show that I participated in with Melissa Bond, Sara Caldiero-Ortlei, and Cat Palmer 3 weeks before Azur was born won an Arty Award in City Weekly for "Gutsiest (ahem) Spoken-Word show" http://www.slweekly.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=4DD0349D-14D1-13A2-9F31ACF77F3477D5Here are my paintings of the poets, and, their poetry that inspired the paintings:
Dear Little Fish,
There are a myriad of names I could call you – Little Papaya and Minor Oblongata being the most current endearments – but of late you’ve felt so very aquatic and I the aquarium, that it seems inevitable that I revert to the watery, the oceanic.Let me introduce myself. We are, of course, well acquainted in the most primal of arrangements, but if I’m to understand your orientation correctly, I am, at present merely the invisible water in which you swim. I am the alpha to your omega, the Escher staircase to your stair. I am the mystic flute that you hear as if echoing through a cavern. You don’t yet know that the flute has a player or that she has a name.So, a formal introduction: Hello, Little Fish. I’m your mother. I am She of the Rubber Room. That’s right, rubber room – the one you’ve been playing tennis against. I am the deep bass wall that resonates with every thwack and swing of your racket. And let me say, you’re quite the player – merciless- you’d have that slick-haired Fedderer weeping into his shoes in that house in Dubai. You’d have the gussied, white-trousered Wimbledon crowd on their feet- roaring- pulling their hair out like flowers and throwing the strands at your feet.
The "Blood, Fertility & Magic" show that I participated in with Melissa Bond, Sara Caldiero-Ortlei, and Cat Palmer 3 weeks before Azur was born won an Arty Award in City Weekly for "Gutsiest (ahem) Spoken-Word show" http://www.slweekly.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=4DD0349D-14D1-13A2-9F31ACF77F3477D5Here are my paintings of the poets, and, their poetry that inspired the paintings:
This first one is by Melissa:
There are a myriad of names I could call you – Little Papaya and Minor Oblongata being the most current endearments – but of late you’ve felt so very aquatic and I the aquarium, that it seems inevitable that I revert to the watery, the oceanic.Let me introduce myself. We are, of course, well acquainted in the most primal of arrangements, but if I’m to understand your orientation correctly, I am, at present merely the invisible water in which you swim. I am the alpha to your omega, the Escher staircase to your stair. I am the mystic flute that you hear as if echoing through a cavern. You don’t yet know that the flute has a player or that she has a name.So, a formal introduction: Hello, Little Fish. I’m your mother. I am She of the Rubber Room. That’s right, rubber room – the one you’ve been playing tennis against. I am the deep bass wall that resonates with every thwack and swing of your racket. And let me say, you’re quite the player – merciless- you’d have that slick-haired Fedderer weeping into his shoes in that house in Dubai. You’d have the gussied, white-trousered Wimbledon crowd on their feet- roaring- pulling their hair out like flowers and throwing the strands at your feet.
I’d like to mention that while I know my condolences can never assuage the utter confusion and magic of living in this world, I want you to know that I will always be there (in soul if not in body) to stand next to you, heart thundering in the chest like a freight train. Because even if I wanted to save you from the knives of this world, which I do, but I can’t, I know that it’s inevitable that you will split your spleen against it at times. You will fall occasionally to those medieval humours, you will have your Little Fish heart broken and broken again …and much as I will yearn to superglue you and place you in a hermetically sealed room …I know that I can only hand you the needle and thread with which to sew your heart back together. This is the love that I’m to learn, Little Fish. The love of letting you break, the love of grief and praise like a language of blood in the body, the love of letting you run giddy and stumbling into the world without me being there at every moment to protect you.
Because- I don’t know if they told you this at the gate or if you listened, but the Hoo Rah! Superhero’s Guidebook for Living on Earth has been backordered since 1923. Rumor has it that a copy (immistakable with its mossy green cover and shape like a candy bar) was last seen sticking out of Martin Luther King’s pocket on that fateful day in Memphis in 1968. The book, like King, was never recovered and there hasn’t been a copy seen since. Which makes you wonder. We’re to go at it, the whole of us, without a single chapter telling us where to go in case of emergency or how to deal with stomach upset or profound loss or the tsunamis of love that pummel our shoreline.
And just so you know, my greatest strength thus far lies in my interest in the uncertainties of this world. I do not rail against them and I wouldn’t advise you doing so. It only causes indigestion and it makes the world a much less pretty place. I believe that my father, your grandfather, a southern gentleman with dandyish proclivities had it right. It’s best to sit upon the porch of the world with a glass of cold mint tea and watch the pageantry with awe struck eyes. Only then will the world come to you. Only then will it roll over and break open at your feet.We will meet soon, Little Fish.I’ll wait for you on the porch, broken open with a milktruck at my chest.Until then.
This one is by Sara:
Sleeping on your
Placenta pillow
Placenta pillow
You dream about
Growing a mouth
To speak words from
Ears to hear the beating
Of drums
Your stump of an arm
Can bend and wave
The paddle
That will form a hand.
Growing a mouth
To speak words from
Ears to hear the beating
Of drums
Your stump of an arm
Can bend and wave
The paddle
That will form a hand.
And here is my third piece, a fertility box:
And finally, the artists now (showing off baby bums in g diapers):
Posts
