a sweetie pie little Christmas

Emily has been a doll.  Really sweet times doin just nothin'.  Rhino and she darling on Christmas Day eve. Like old times, kinda.  The Wellington was not utterly fabulous, the onion soup a bit too cheesy, the moose cookies fragile and fattening and yet it's been great to cook in the new kitchen.  Next up - feeding the ducks.  I feel like I've been on vacation forever.  just nice.

Gary Watkins - a dearest friend of mine

In the hospital, in the last hours.  

Me: "Gary, are we boring you?"

Gary (through his ventilator): "A little bit."

Also: "Gary, they found the God Particle!"

The hand that hadn't moved all day raises and waves in tired joy.

I loved Gary all along but was taken a bit by surprise by the depth of it, by the utterly profound depth of him.  I can't imagine I will ever know a more brave human being.  Just grace and humor, such utter absence of bitterness or self-pity in the wicked progression of ALS (and, of course, losing his husband).  The rooms where they both died in Kaiser were separated by the exact same wall.  And one year.  Theirs - the greatest relationship I've ever known.  I will miss him/ both of them - so.  I will strive all my life to be courageous like Gary was every day.  A huge loss.  A beloved book closes.

Anna Log

My new art name.
My new great desire: unplug from everything.  no.  -- from everything plugged.
Digital is soulless and that's Our Age.

Finding it a bit tough to feel real connections; have to find a way to live differently, connect with what I can, perhaps dial expectations way down.

Can't wait to get back to the studio.



(I will miss Gary so very much.  What a surprise to find him my hero).

Perp Walk

--my furtive, illegal shot of being escorted back through Canadian customs and out of the building.
note little contraband green bag of oil paint in second officer's hand.  This after a "Level 5" screening - me viewing the bag search remotely on a monitor: "It's a hit!"  Sudden security everywhere!

"Can I tell you what I think it is?"
"We really don't want you to speak right now."

3 full body scans.  Through US customs, Canadian customs, back through US customs, back through Canadian customs.  Shoots and Ladders all of it.  Gothic.  ... Back to the start.  This morning, back through US customs - after being made to wait 50 minutes for a security "talking to".  In between: Drag ski bag full of skis and heavy canvas about three miles (along with other heavy tumbling bags hahaha) - at least here they are carrying the other bags. Jesus.  It's oil paint!   Fine to travel out of the states with but not out of Canada with apparently.

They were going to throw the 'suspicious material" (paints) away.  But I got them to escort me out to the sidewalk where I could then find a way to ship them home.  Did.  Chaching.  Had to spend the night at my expense in Calgary. Chaching.  BofA froze my card after so much weird activity (much more: too dull to list)

Anyway.
Get me home!
I wanna come home!

et voila! c'est fini . . .c'était bon. et froid.

okay in a month I've done

Paintings:

2 @ 96 x 60"

5 @ 60 x 60" - some of which I quite like.

4 @ 30 x 20"

8 @ 5 x 5"

8 @ 10 x 12"

Photos: a bazillion: aboot 30/day - some of which I quite like.

Poems aboot photos: six

3 wee videos (more when I have a proper computer)

30 or so alternate process prints - more today? (love being in the darkroom!)
10 digital prints - 16 x 20
15 digital prints - 5 x 7
Revisions on poetry manuscripts (not too much)
One collaborative piece
One installation piece
Group show today.

Okay?  Good enough?

the back bowls of Lake Louise

um.  

... what does the other side look like....?

The tunnel isn't even a metaphor.

The tunnel is a tunnel.

The black hole is a hole.

And, of course, passing through is passing through

Or not passing through is  

What interests me:

what forms a tunnel?

what pressures keep it?

what compels the matter through?

lines of equilibrium

phase boundaries

phase transitions

the heat or entropy of the solvent

the condition - why?

the crystal lattice breaks

and we lose her

following

as we are compelled to

as time could be a tunnel,

the fragility of matter: a kind of tunnel

following

as we are compelled to 

how long will our constituent parts hold?

what are they

- interesting? unassembled?

and what will they become after?

There is a coldness in the air.

Change is fine with indifference.

It is hard for us

who travel so.

Or, maybe,

 it isn't.

nice ski day!

no pics.
no wind either: stopped when we started, started when we stopped.

okay. found a pic online.  Lake Minnewanka.  Nice skiing on t'other side.
the Canadian Rockies kick ASS!

Somewhere near there is new life

a hum that will become a concerto

time for a stretch of time, unmarked

the could-be of love

close

the whole box of matches

can burst into flame 

the aurora leaps green off the ice.

It is not too late 

for everything.

Look for

surprise

and find it.

The Washing Machine Blues

just for memory's sake: here I am playin' junk at Bruno's in Banff.  PERFECT bar.

great time.

random upload of photo to write about.

There are no unsacred places;
There are only sacred places
And desecrated places.

                -Wendell Berry

Italian Dream

A good thing

- in Italy - 

that most houses stay

with their foundations

with, perhaps, their Umbria and its bells

and can be walked past by the old man

who remembers stealing a loose rock from the stone fence

decades earlier, perhaps throwing it and 

unfortunately

hitting his target.

The world is there.

Largely the same.

And the bend in the road

Down from the heart-shaped town

through the sunflowers

the olive orchards 

down until the road flattens for awhile

then winds up.

We show them

how to make life transparent

and its moorings 

susceptible to the wind

how the ground below you

can become something else

that never had anything to do

with you.

You can see through one house

to another.  They are all the same.

And our histories are all the same.

We want what they want.

They want what we want.

We'll get it.  Want something else

or look through our window

and not want that

meet someone

and not want them

Context is an embarassment.

Subtext is worse.

Ours is a two-dimensional life

suspended in corn-syrup.

Sweet, clear.

You will be happy.

A calendar will tell you when to be a bit happier

for a day.

Entire lives drift past you.

Houses, lovers, thoughts that never took root 

drift like another sourceless mood.

This is okay.

There is no meaning to it.

Any history is bullshit.

And the air 

or the fluid that we turn in

is not sacred either.

Place is something

we can do without.

catching up as if Day 4/December 4

To The Whaling Captain

Is it so different

This standing on the prow

staring towards the lack of clear

delineation

between sky and sea

between up and down

now and then

How to categorize the mysteries that compel us.

Stay up late in the rocking cabin

and index what you can.

We obsess over the giant that is out there

or has turned and moves right underneath

inevitable opponent

with as much need of us

as these distances themselves

And yet we are here

It is our eyes that are open

now

Mine open yours again

And the vessel that takes us

gathers speed

the sound of the wet ropes

pulling the canvas taut.

random upload of photo to write about.

Though it is late

Hold the house up to the light

See there - 

it is a rainy day.

The tree stands

thin in the wind

as it always has.

And the house

though small enough to fit 

now

in my hand

appears to have windows, still

that could be looked out of

and one imagines

a table that could be set

smaller now

and further back in time.

Begin with the rain

Begin with the rain
as it begins with the rain
and ends with the rain

The path is hidden.
The well is hidden.

The road to and away
is hidden.

The rain slants down.
Obliterating
where there would have been windows.
The weeds grow
where the last words fell
where fire after fire
eventually went out.

The world, though whispering,
is
(almost),
again,

new.

zzz

been falling behind, catching up, falling behind.
Just two more days of this - if I bother to catch up.
Then, I imagine, I'll try to write for a month about my odd photos of late.
Not quite sure what i'm getting done up here.  I sure seem to be doing stuff but the result is .... well.  we'll see.  Artist talk tonight in which I get to present my PROcess, as they say here.

So far, it's all aboot PROcess, eh?  ... Seems I have a different idea a day.  Not bad but, do any have legs?
Hard to say.

Have had some supply problems and so am painting in colors I normally wouldn't maybe.  (Haven't hardly been painting.  just shooting, mostly).  But I'll just burn through all I have here and then have a month or two to pull stuff together for the show.  (is that still happening?)

Alright.
Am I awake yet?

I don't think so.

25

guess we got a holiday for 24.  Thanksgiving.

I wonder if I should go on with this.  Near the end but feeling bored with it.

For today’s prompt, please write a consumption poem. There are any number of things we consume as people, and even more if you think outside the human experience. Some are good, some not so much. But there’s so much consumption going on every single day that it’s a great topic for poeming.


Nope.  Just going to have a creepy cup of tea.  Thinking outside human experience I guess.

And another one:

23 - Also... just ghastly, but you know what. who really cares?

For today’s prompt, write a travel poem. Yes, I knew I’d be on the road today, so it was a no-brainer for me to decide on what today’s prompt should cover. You can come at traveling from any angle you wish, just be safe out on the roads.








Today is Thanksgiving.  I am in a country
that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving.


I could be bumping along a small and smaller
and smaller now road
in the back of a Datsun pickup truck 
slamming into potholes that make me
eat my liver


Live chickens with me there.
Banana trees flying past.
The radio on - always -
full blast.


But no.
Where I am is very civilized.
The freeways are paved and dusted in salt.
The lettuce is fresh, the sodas, cold.
The natives are bundled and smiling.


But there is no pie today.


And so I find them
savages.

absolutely dreadful!!

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Whenever (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then write your poem. Example titles could be: “Whenever I write a poem,” “Whenever something good happens,” “Whenever never,” etc.

Whenever it is snowing and I am drinking coffee
I am happy

Whenever I am at a stop sign and I can feel
the bass pulse of the driver's bass next to me
I am not happy.

Whenever I am kissing
I am happy

Whenever not kissing
not not happy but

Reading/hair wet/happy
Untangling wires/unhappy

Looking at sheep/ happy
Looking at cows/ happy, a bit less
At bankers/unhappy
At lawyers/worse

Crisp sheets heavy blankets
body/cool/warm/good
First escaped, unauthorized thought

the whole moon
comes right up near my eye
obliterates my planet, my world, my bed, my sense


bodiless
body there
without edges at all


happy

22

Today is a Tuesday (but not the last one of November), which means there are two prompt. They are:

1. Pick a fruit, make it the title of your poem, and write the poem. Example titles include: “Banana,” “Kiwi,” “Lemon,” etc.
2. Pick a vegetable, make it the title of your poem, and write the poem. Example titles include “Pickle,” “Potato,” “Asparagus,” etc.

Really?  ah geez.  okay.  well I've been doing a poor job on this anyway - falling behind and jamming to catch up.

Not feelin this one, but here goes...

Not Rich

I still remember the two limes

and a bunch of cilantro I bought on 

on a corner food boutique on 

the Upper East Side

Madison Avenue

between the Whitney and the Met

back when I was in that neighborhood

most of the time, being served,

for free, venison and Beef Wellington 

and Jean Jacques' soufflés on a regular basis.

Twelve dollars and seventeen cents!

Eight cilantro leaves - arching up and out like a tiny bouquet 

held together by a ninth, in a bow,

assembled, no doubt, by a rail thin miss,

lovely and pleasant,

and two limes that looked like, like limes.

Who lives like this?

Twelve dollars and seventeen cents!

I'll never get over it.

20

For today’s prompt, write a best ever poem. Now, don’t stress out. I don’t expect everyone to write the best poem ever written–however, you’re allowed to aim for that if you wish. No, I’m asking you to write a poem about the best ever something. For instance, the best ever kiss, best ever dance, best ever party, best ever comeback, best ever moment, etc. Think about your personal “bests” and then write one (or three).

Lake Louise   11 • 20 • 11

Bit by bit

I lose sensation

but keep walking

around a bend

around a bend

away from all sound

all movement

My eyes still move

And my legs

And my eyes

Why must everything be

so beautiful?

On a frozen waterfall

in the distance

magnificent and dripping ice blue

I spy a little figure

half way up, armed

with just an ax

and his crampons

and no one looking

he would think

but me there

not making a sound 

in awe of all that has will

and all that needs none

l

19

For today’s prompt, write a “suspicious minds” poem. When I assembled these prompts more than a month ago, I considered this one of my more unusual (and more creative) prompts. Click here to see Elvis Presley perform this song. Anyway, I’m thinking there are a few ways to go with this prompt. One, write a poem in which the narrator is either suspicious of someone or is the actual one under suspicion. Two, write a poem that plays with repetition–as this song does. Three, write a poem that is a performance poem spectacular (as this song is here). Of course, you can always bend and blend the prompt as you see fit.


Free


Where I am now
There is a treadmill
on a level above a pool.
Glass makes the pool visible and in it
a woman who smiles and smiles
and her boy balances on a floating pad and falls off
and they laugh and smile.


She gazes to the end of the pool where
a man plays with his boy.


I think they are not married.
They are traveling together - the two couples 
and their children.  
And she is smiling and looking.
And a man comes behind her.
And she turns away from him.
Plays with the child.
Looks to the end of the pool.


The man is serious, follows her gaze
wants to touch her but 
he doesn't even try.  She dives away.


She emerges, smiling
at everything, but him.
She delights in the boy.
She looks to the end of the pool
for the other.  Her husband
gets out of the pool, unnoticed.


I run
and run


and run
from that.

18

For today’s prompt, write an “it’s too late” poem. Nobody likes a quitter, but sometimes you have to “know when to hold them, know when to fold them…” There are times when it’s just too late, and today is the day to write that poem–before it’s too late, of course.




Evil Spirit

The winds of Hell have sucked back into their caverns.
That cellar door is locked.
There is a bolder rolled over it
and a sea risen around it.

He snatched what he snatched
for this time
and it is too late now

to live in a world that had been
without him
or even to live in a world with him
anymore.

At the end, the neighbors would say,
"There she is!
Get inside!"
But it wasn't She.  It was He.
Wandering the surface of the world
for a time
feeling the edges of form
and the walls of the apartment hallway
and the turning points of the story
(in which there were children)
the life in the shared trembling body
- made impossibly thin -
again, on its little knees
and the defeat of the loving
drink-strangled heart.

Too late to sing.
Too late even to cry.
Too late to write anything after
the barely legible:
"Dear Faithful Friends."

He takes the pen
out of the weakened, determined hand
and calls that - the last word.

The winds suck back.
Water fills the lungs.
The boulder slides into place,
The sea rises.

The spirit retreats
to digest

all sweet promise
and

possibility.

17

For today’s prompt, write a poem that reveals something. Maybe it’s something physical (like light revealing an intruder or pulling back a sheet to reveal a new car). Or maybe it’s something psychological, emotional, or spiritual. Today’s the day to reveal.

Cathedra


lt has become something to me
little chair


little
little


too small to sit in
too small to pull up to a table
- if there is one, I don't know.


The little chair floats in my head somewhere
recognizable thing that I suppose says


you have lived and have a place 
or 
there is time to sit
or 
you say 'chair'
- is this what you mean?


Here it is.
Little chair
The word derived from cathedra
Like to sit down
and rest before the divine
and see what one sees
within
and without.

16

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Once Upon a (Blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Example titles could include: “Once Upon a Time,” “Once Upon a Moon,” or “Once Upon a Stage Accepting the Nobel Prize in Literature.” Hey, a poet can dream, right?


god.  these are lame this time around.


Once Upon a Time


There was a house that split in half
in the middle of its floor
and the middle of its tree


It hovered like that
for awhile
as if made from imagination
as if past could disconnect
right in the middle like that
from present
as if waiting for someone
who knew
how to pull the ceiling
back down
how to match up the walls
how to live
like normal people do
on Tuesdays and Sundays
in the dark and in the light,
their world around them
like all that is safe
and ordinary
and right.

Day 14

For today’s prompt, write a deadly and dangerous poem. Or you could write just a deadly poem. Or you could write a just dangerous poem. Feel free to poem on the wild side today!


too tired to catch up well, but trying.  knockin em out.  hopefully i'll be able to focus more on the second half of these.


Turbulence


I remember her saying she would like to drown.
I remember me saying I would like to freeze to death.
I remember this at 30,000 feet above the Canadian Alps.
as the plane bucks and dips and my drink flies upward.
I clutch onto material things.  I find Gods to pray to.
Everywhere.  All of them.
I see her face float past me by the window, her blonde hair
curling, drifting. 


I see them finding me.
The forest behind me burns and makes the snow orange.
My lips are purple, translucent.
I am beautiful.
My eyes, iridescent, stare ahead as if
at the black raven that lifts 
from a winter-laden branch
and glides
like eternity
through the snowscape
in the morning
that has come
again.

Day 9 - way out of order. ah well. what are ya gonna do?

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) or (blank),” replace the blanks with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Example titles could be: “This or that,” “Dogs or cats,” “Go my way or the highway,” “To poem or not to poem,” etc.

Sooner or Later

The pomegranate will break open
on its own or shrivel
Seed by red and juicy bleeding seed
will dry, dim
be not worth bothering with
Winter will come
and the blood will course blue
through veins transparent
whispering
a name
or what might sound like
a name
or what might sound like
a sound
or what might sound like
more than just
blood
thinning
slowing

It will be alright.
You've been alone

forever.

Not every seed
gets tasted.