#134 … Yorick contemplates the gentleman’s tomb …

IMG_0182

Born before the mediated perspectives we now so cherish, Yorick the resurrected character of a noble’s jester, conjures – tomb lounging; a post-death activity presumedly common among the ruling classes. Fancy stuff deposited in the deep for infinity.

Yorick, a medieval skeleton [ or do you say “early-modern” ? early-modern seems a bit clinical, austere, academic don’t you think? ] … any way, a jester’s skeleton who imagined what ( he thought ) his late gentleman’s tomb ought to look like: the vast riches aggressively accumulated and laid to rest with pharaonic nobility.

Upon visiting, that tragic luxury seems missing, it is just a bit to vacant.

The story of those [ lacking ] bits of the material life are suitable fodder for a comic playwright. The historical perspective an archeologist might gain poking through this tomb, is limited.  But the post-modern world we are supposedly living in (and any playwright adapted to these times) might find these items less than violently raucous commercially-adaptable comic; they do seem slow, rural, even benign.  The tomb lacks the medieval shower of gilt and bronze and the modern proliferation of golf clubs, drones, and digital gadgets, so where would the story be found?  With Yorick?

IMG_0183

Historical tragedies and conjured comedies seem to agree it is probably best to reflect on them in the upper strata, here and now. Linked burdens and various (yet to be forgiven) vintage incendiary devices are the treasures of many a tomb.

 

#130 … considering fools, dangling puppets …

DCS_1639

 

 

 

 

 

Fools, dangling, manipulated puppets; fools and folly … ahuhm…

 

 

This folly? The fantasy that the grey slouch doesn’t matter (all surely think him young … and acceptably feral); and do not consider the corporate joint and muscle dissolution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, but he would counter; do any of us really know who pulls our strings? And wouldn’t a mask of a smile be just as good?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe, with a proper puppeteer, he could dance lightly, a bit more delicately;  maybe.

#119…Yorick’s riddles, the answer …

IMG_0001  The answer to last week’s riddle?

     The Turn-Light Traffic Signal !

What you say, love poem? Yes, but only when it turns green, the color of life moving on.  The other colors (and the winking) certainly means that someone must just want to look at me, and hold me stopped; their love possession.  Alas, this may seem paranoiac but I like to think of the world as personal, not some random computer-generated authority.  To whit, the anarchist out of step with Times.

IMG_0002

 

#110 … considering the winds of inspiration and coffee drips …

IMG_0010

Artists, this time of year, sit in garrets (if they can find one) or, more commonly, off in some corner table considering the splotched patterns of spilled coffee as the wind blows against the wall, just inches away .

It is March, the glum, gloom, precursor to Spring The Delightful and the most appropriate time for the poetic imagination (unfortunately often in the most prosaic pathetic pseudo-journalistic rant form).

Behind the cages of curled-up circus animals here at the tent and slightly upwind into the corners; the wail of the wind, grey of the sky, and general earthiness has encouraged poetic rants from those emotives who have wintered-over here.IMG_0011

 

 

While the jesters play with their jester’s sticks, taunting the winds and the windy-wise ones there are voices coming from the corners.  “But, I didn’t…(followed by indecipherable words) came several times.  “But, I didn’t…”.  But, I didn’t…” (“didn’t” what, or to what end is not clear).

 

 

 

IMG_0001

 

You have probably heard many similar expressions, repetitive, loud, hammered with an unceasing mechanical rhythm;  but these are presently unadorned by electronic amplification and overwhelmed by the prairie wind and animal snoring.

It might be some marvelous insight predicted by how the coffee got spilt.

 

IMG_0007

And so it goes, artistic inspiration. Oh, and the answer to last weeks riddle from Yorick?

The Handrail…IMG_0001

 

#108 … audience participation, heaven and hell …

IMG_0001

Its’ that season … the hopes of an approaching wonderful spring bluntly contradicted by the hopeless austerity of what remains of winter. Among the emotives this leads to considerations of earthly oblivion and rewards of an afterlife, typically this is done in theatrical (if somewhat artless) pageantry. An audience climbing up or pushing down over bleachers; apparent steps to a private small prestigious heaven made to their liking, and a merciless shove aided by gravity, sending lessers to perdition. As if assigning folks for eternity is an audience participation event.

He and She are somewhat puzzled by the art historic character of the rush up and the push down. Souls, wandering timeless souls, still hankering and hanging around for some divine attention; or, preferably, gaining superiority over those who seem to have the receipt for the Divinity’s best earthly thoughts and prayers.

Oblivion is like a hired circus ride, ( you pay up front for the product, but…no expiration date ). Odiferous hell-fire and brimstone belch where emotives gather, slumping many into the expansive realm of hell. Meanwhile the incense of ethereal Elysian fields wafts in the tent top. Or so it seems.

IMG_0007.jpg

 

There was a day, known to Yorick (when fleshed) when he partook in the separating weaknesses of souls on the hoof.

Now a well-aged jester, and verily, the stock of envy, malice, and vanity  persists, ’tis the season of engaged absurdity.

 

 

Would an audience of emotives do… different things (considering oblivion); if they are pointed-out?

 

 

#84 … middenheaps and refugees …

 

IMG_0001 2What could be better for time-refugee enfant terribles than to be cast upon the prairie at a reunion housed in a disused circus tent, on a discarded farm, a bit upstream from the middenheap. Middenheaps matter, waste-piles downstream a bit (lest a nest be fouled), away from habitation.  The middenheap, the piles of revelatory refuse crushed in convoluted layers, canceled and discarded stuff of bygone refugees. A story of wanderers in convulsed pattern.

IMG_0002

What did they eat, what wood or stainless ladle did beat on some drum or dinner bell, what poetic pottery, trade items, pets (or supper) bones; burnt and crushed, once valued – now eroding, discarded evidence of passed lives; even the affection in those lives.

Once wandering refugees left scraps from flint-tipped hunting somewhere around here.  Now our circus tent rests on farm ruins of but a few generations use; plus the middenheap bits of steel, bones, glass, plastic and bundled papers; erratically layered.

 

IMG_0004.jpgAfter commercial skirmishes destroyed their daily pattern, circus tents and quaint farmsteads are now mostly gone…industry and raucous media replaced what was singular or family, small, clannish, close,  (even romantic).

 

 

The ancient way is to rebuild on ruins and middenheaps, layer upon layer – that leaves evidence. Our tent (The Temporary Museum of Enfant Terrible Culture) will no doubt leave some mark – for awhile; but certainly no stone reference of its’ mighty empire, just partially burnt and bundled discard.

IMG_0001

Refugees from some new disturbance are bound to show up, and build their own.  Maybe our enfant terribles, anachronistic anarchists, will remain; then here will be another haunted place to be uncovered in measured layers.

 

Someday, maybe, someone who wonders about stuff in the middenheap might find useful evidence that is not yet consumed. IMG_0003

Projects of hands, maybe document bits recording homespun chores, numbers, affections, sentiments, burnt and crushed, layered among the middenheap, evidence not consumed, evidence of those who discarded and wondered on.

 

#80 … considering … maybe, what She is doing …

100_1366What is She doing?

(But first this inquiry) Does He have a right (is that the right word(?)- it is such a big word – to visit? Would it be best to just stay away?  She is, after all, trying to grasp and maybe emote some timeless grace.

Close to the river, the thickets (as good as any other background for mortality) limit her (as they do him); and maybe – maybe is such a big word don’t you think, (maybe?) – maybe She wants some quiet from the chaos of emotives and bomb-throwers, and enfant terribles, and maybe just (and is this the smallest maybe) maybe from He and his craziness?100_2305

 

Now that He has passed the conspicuous discrepancy (He, faulted, walked the straight and narrow – to her) shouldn’t He be acceptable?  Maybe (as one might think) maybe, to be with her at the river…maybe? Maybe He has his own flowing grace or simple crazed value.

Or maybe it doesn’t matter, maybe She just wants to ponder a while, stare (or gaze) through this moment …

… or maybe wait …

IMG_0001

… wait …wait, (that is also … such a big word).

 

 

 

 

…Vignette…

The American Experience continues…

IMG_0001 2

Sometimes, even here in the very sensible midwest …

… things get mixed up.

Barbed wire, roses, poison ivy, all share orderly fence posts,

sensibly convoluted.

 

 

Anarchy … the soul of one, just one … twists, for want of other choices …

… on structure meant for broader devisings, other purposes, different borders, other times.

 

 

#75…considering the demon Beauty…

 

DCS_1629Reining a demon …

… Beauty … Beauty certainly isn’t a demon, is it …(or maybe – she)?

Is there a tethering grace to hold the pony’s desertion or revenge?

 

There is noise in bumping cans, tubes, brushes, bottles, razorblades dividing pleasure from depression (simple, just scrape off callused dried bumbles).  There is racket in traffic, robo-calls, bad media speakers, word questions for which there are no answers (impatience awaiting sober silence or skill?). There are memories, bits of love, clanging  mushy heady grey matter (or warm red embodiments), alarms beepbeepbeeping (is it commerce or just legality?).  There is loud partisan truth (for which there is no rebuttal).  All this, and obviously more, attend while roping a delusion …  the reining of Beauty.

And yet some, covered with dust and ashes, persevere. That is okay, and noticed, but please don’t burden the wrangler with your delusions.  It’s that day’s work, a tiny skirmish with an outrider of the sublime, a vengeful circus pony; and plenty for the painter’s day.

Beauty has within – a wildness – to birth awe, but beauty is not awe.  Beauty is tied to controlling acts of delusion, of a final ruling, maybe unity, even unalterable hushed simplicity; beheld, maybe, in joy.  And yet it changes, often degrades; entropy attending the stillbirth of awe.

Artistics possessors of technique and emotions, even greyed and ash covered ones, mostly lack that silent simplicity: and seek painting (circus ponies and more) for fun.  Now there is a delusion! Fun is less than joy, and that’s a fact.  The restraining lead tied to beauty is going to snap and lash through delusions, the stumbling, the wild skill-less drippings, the slashing; the meek even cowardly smoothing: hoping for that simplicity, a circus going solemn.  And yet, beauty is more than that and less than awe, and that’s a fact.

But shouldn’t fear reign in the confrontation with demons?

Can we be fools, funning with Beauty, restraint ruining the savage unleashing of joy: and still face (and even grasp) the descent of awe?

It is how the circus ponies get their revenge.