A Game of Consequences

What the artist said (on a small brass plaque next to his exhibit)

There is nothing to
my installation
save tall mirrors,
my arrangement of them.

Stand on the welcome mat,
look into the first, blue, mirror.
You will see yourself,
but in some context
that your brain supplies.
Not standing in a gallery, 
but kissing someone
or killing someone,
or making tea or sniffing coke
or hoovering. Perhaps
you will be sleeping
with somebody unknown to you.

What happened when they opened

A visitor, J Fogg by name,
stood on the welcome mat
and gazed into the mirror
as advised, then slowly,
from an inside pocket
of his smart Italian suit,
he took a glove and, slowly still,
pulled it over his right hand
then smacked his fist against the glass.
A spider's web of cracks spread out across the mirror, and

What was later said by Fogg to explain his act.

                       
                             /             \
                            /               \                                  
The mirror had gone black                    The glass was
bringing on a bout of his depression.        full of smakes
In the total blackness he had seen
a black dog snarling -- seemingly at him

     Most frightening
    were shadows thrown
   by people known to him             The image in the mirror
  with bright light cores           briefly changed, became
 or dew-bright eyes that          an X-Ray photograph of him
shone and followed him.         and showed dark shadows
                              on his lungs and heart,
                            that grew and switched
                          from time to time to dark
                        red, glowing shapes,
                      then back to black
Going dark, the glass
had left him with the
fear that he might sleep --
the terror of The little Death
  

Ancient Dreams

Some dreams lie deep
beneath the flux
and tidal flow
of tidy minds.

Titanics on the ocean floor,
ships of dreams,
your dreams of mine.
Dreams we had and lost
six lives ago.

Dark dreams that hunger,
sunk in deep despair;
and dreams of light and cheer:
all bottled in 
the darkness of the sea
and indistinguishable there.

These images need rescuing,
transporting to our world.
Real-world exposure
reveals the substance to the mind.

How shall we rescue them,
these ancient wrecks?
How shall we drag them to
the surface or the shore?

They're colonised by now.
A million different life forms,
all unknown to us,
have long since called them home.

And can we see the loss of them
as something spiritual?
Like all forms of decay
and natural change,
it's part of nature's plan
for life. We'll be content
to join it there.

Cloud Poem #1 The ART of LETTING GO

                          The water colourist will know
                       within himself
                           the moment that the work is finished
                                                      and yet
                                                 and yet
 Letting go                                  and yet
is hard to do                  he goes back time and time again
                                to add a bit
                             fine tune a bit
  The parents know                           or thicken up 
  the time has come                               an arabesque
the child a child no more             until the sparkle's gone 
They must let go                             the form is lost.

       Letting go is good to do! 

           let go!      De-      cluttering       the house...
                          so much stuff we do not want
                                         will never use
                                 why can we never let it go?

             Carl,                                        
        stunt man                                Opportunities
         for the films                  so rarely come our way
           friend of mine                    we must not 
 driving his (special) Austen Healey               let THEM go!
              spun it on a patch of ice.
                To let the car correct itself
          he took his hands from the steering wheel.
The car, like a well-trained working dog
   rewarded him for trusting it.                Letting go --
                                And yet           both vice
                         And yet               and virtue.
                  And yet
               he did not wholly let go of the reins --
              his feet were busy all the while --
         doing what, I never fully understood.

---

The subject was suggested by Claudia for Poetics at dVerse Poets This form is something I have just begun to toy with. As you see, I have called it a cloud poem. You find your own way through it. There is o right way or wrong way. Unfortunately it does not lend itself very well to blogging, preferring the landscape format, but I thought it might be fun to try. (I' sure someone will tell me it's been done - it always has been in the world of art.)

A Small Storm with an Aftermath

That was not thunder, sister,
but a gun,
not lightning nurse,
incendiary bombs...
See there --
a plane just crashed...

How many adults with
so much to lose
or keep intact:
authority, position, dignity --
and class, perhaps,
would throw it all away
to play with a few children,
to cringe and quiver on all fours
beneath the table, desk and beds
to play their silly games?

Ward Sister Mary would.

For it was us
who would have shrunk beneath the sheets
in abject fear had we not braved
ourselves to face the world
with our new game of make believe --

make Sister Mary, if we could, believe
the storm was nothing of the sort.
A simple air raid -- not a thing
for us to fear,
though adults would, we knew.

Too soon, alas, the matron came
spitting fire and brimstone
and ordering our playful sister
to desist. Come out at once
and tidy up your uniform!
A most disgraceful exhibition,
letting down the hospital. 
Behaviour worse than any child's! 

We heard next day she was in deep, deep trouble.

Christmas in Hospital

Special air, dad said --
and mum was coming, too.
Magic stuff to make me well --
and Dr Shellswell would be there.

I saw the place at once:
the shop had barley sugar walls
and gold shelves stocked
with wanda and spells and crystal balls

and jars of coloured air.
Behind the counter, Dr Shellswell,
tall in wizard's hat,
was opening his bag of tricks:

stethoscope, pink medicine,
some pills -- and best of all,
the book of British Empire Stamps
he always brought to swap with me.

A white bus with a red cross
took us to the magic shop
for us to buy the air.
Then wafted on a magic carpet 

through a cave called A and E
where silver kettles belching steam
were filled with knives and kinds
of things I'd never seen before.

I made it crystal-clear, I thought:
two armies I had left at home
teetering on the brink of war 
(one was bunkered in my bed)-- 

of course I could not stay to tea!
It was the sparkling Christmas tree
I think that changed my mind -- also
that Santa would be there that night.

In the morning, true as true,
a Snow White doll and a Noah's Ark.
Across from me, a terrorist,
a sleeper 'till the time was right,

who'd had some heavy armour brought
by Santa in the night.
He'd send his mighty tanks, he said,
to kill or capture my Snow White.

This is another rewrite of an old poem (partly because I'm on a mission to make some that are important to me somewhat leaner and meaner) but also, in this case, rewritten in acceptance of Victoria C Slotto's invitation to submit poems based on early childhood memories for this week's Meeting the Bar at dVerse Poets
These are actually my first significant memories. I would have been five. It was just before the outbreak of war. Interestingly, what I imagined has stayed more vivid than the reality of how things were and what happened. (This leaves some room for manoeuvre when writing, as - for instance - I had imagined several scenarios for "going to this magic place to get the air".)

An Incident at Sea

Like a giant locust
green and yellow
circling
thwwwum-p thwwwum-p thwwwum-p
looking for a stalk of corn 
                           to land.
Eliambulanza
            printed on its side.

A deck hand
armed only with a tall step ladder
makes his way around the stern
from lamp to lamp
climbs each one as he comes to it,
removes the globe
and moves on to the next.

The locust's getting tetchy now
and belly-wiggles -- much to say
Get on with it, for 
Time is of the essence, man.

Finally
       the lights are down
there's room now for the rotor blades...
thwwwum-p thwwwum-p thwwwum-p
reminders come
              that it's still there.
The deck hand joins his mates --
there's still some clearing to be done:
deck chairs, loungers, 
tables, food stalls.
                  Only then...

but finally
           we're ready for...
One deck up, we're crowding forward
cameras and smart phones ready for...
It's Action...?

No, the ambulance completes a final circuit,
turns
     and disappears.
                    Show over folks.
Dispiriting to realise
(I don't at first)
                  the reason why
the need for it has passed.

---

This is a rewrite of an older poem. You can read the original version here.

The Fucking Has To Stop. NOW!

They're laying into her without restraint,
her injuries are indescribable.
She screams for mercy and the busy street
absorbs her screams the way it stockpiles traffic fumes,
accepts them as concomitants of all known plans
for human progress, happiness and wealth.

The screams could no more now reverse the flow
of wealth and progress for the few (and who,
meanwhile, has happiness in tow?) than could the traffic's 
racket drown the toxins that the street consumes.

At no point in the rape from strip to death
does any Good Samaritan attempt to intervene.

---

Serendipity might be held responsible for this poem's birth. Three factors came together. Taking them in reverse chronological order: there was this reference to the dVerse Poets Open Link Night on Brian Miller's blog:- write something and put a bumper sticker on it that reads poem, only the hauty will tell you it's not anyway...and you can ignore them, i do...smiles. Well, not a bumper sticker perhaps. The title of my poem was the heading for a stunning piece of graffiti I saw - briefly - from a train. Lastly, that same day I read a newspaper report of a rape in a High Street during daylight hours. I tried to make my short poem refer equally to the street rape and the rape of Mother Earth. (Hope you picked up the clues. Please tell me if you did not.)

The Man Who Wasn't Cézanne

It might have been Cézanne
who went into the field of corn
and setting up his easel,
looked around and saw
the mountains to the rear
and, argumentative in sky
and corn, the raucous crows.
It might have been Cézanne,
this painter on a mission --
and if it had been he
he would have known
where best to stay his eye. 
But this was not Cézanne. 
This painter was anonymous... 
famous but anonymous. He was
in need of time, reflection, 
thought. He needed to consider,
weigh up all the aspects. He 
had come to paint reality.
He'd paint it in whatever guise
it came to him. But where in
all this richness should
a painter focus first? To help
him in the awe-inspiring task
he'd brought an aid to mental
application: a chocolate cream egg.

He bites the egg.
It spurts. It stains
his shirt. But more:
it stains his pristine canvas.
He looks with horror at two stains --
a dark brown chocolate-coloured streak
beneath a yellow egg yolk smudge.

He takes a palette knife,
attacks the irritating marks,
but only spreads them, makes them
more offensive to his eyes.
He is about to try again
with greater fury when
a crow adds to the mess with
a grey-white and black, grey white
conglomerate obscenity... He stops,
the palette knife raised high
above his head in preparation for
the final strike... he's struck
by thought. And are these not,
he cries aloud, more real than
any marks I've ever seen purporting
to be art? Seconds after
voicing this epiphany he is engulfed
by midges, which he sets about
with vigour and his cap. Only later
does he realise that he has swatted some
on to the canvas, where they've
somehow morphed as crows among
the egg yolk-corn, above
the chocolate earth.

So that's reality! he says.
Reality impinges, bites, invades,
encroaches on your rights, becomes
a bloody nuisance now and then.
And if it don't do that, then man,
it just aint real enough for me!
Reality don't paint, it simply
spreads itself around. It's mucky,
fucky, unlucky for the guy
who gets too stuck with it. Reality
finds you and when it does,
then do all what you have to do with it --
and get out pretty quick! 

(Perhaps the world of art
would not have been the same
if anonymous had really been Cézanne!)

Could Anything be More Destructive of Poetic Form?

Sylvia Plath
thought it would be difficult
to accommodate a toothbrush in a poem.
In a novel, yes.
(A novel is a rag bag,
will take anything you care to throw at it.)
But in a poem?
Almost impossible!

What is it then, I wondered,
that a toothbrush is or has
that is so devastating
of poetic form?

Could it be by some association?
The open mouth, for instance...
How unromantic, unpoetic that can be!
Responsible for putting dentists
right up in the stratosphere
of mental breakdowns.
Topping every list.

Its total lack of looks, perhaps?
(neither have I ever seen it 
in a still life... or brought in
to a gallery as something found.) 
A urinal, yes. But toothbrush? Never!

I have tried to disprove Plath's contention. 
Here are some of my attempts:-

At the dawn of day
my toothbrush comes into its own...
Oh the spring water!

(Well, do I still agree with her?
I'm damned if I am sure...)
Let me try two more:-

On that one side - pain
even so there too I clean
with morning vigour!

Of difficult names
the spring weeds must rank highest --
next to the toothbrush!

O.K., they're fiendishly clever,
those Japanese,
so I'll try something else;-

Against the rubber tongues of cows
the toothbrush in the hands of men...
(With apologies to Ted Hughes - "Thistles".)

And from Ezra Pound (Canto XLV):-
with usura
hath no man a glass and a toothbrush on his bathroom wall

O.K., I confess, I don't know.
I merely assemble the evidence.
You, dear readers are the jury,
what thinketh thou?

Moving Shades of Light and Dark

This is the second instalment of the adventures of this particular monkey. You can read the first instalment here.
This instalment was written for Manicddaily's prompt, Light and Dark for Groundhog Day at dVerse Poets

It was raining when I visited
the monkey in captivity. 
The squirrel monkey (as I am
now told he is) and sexy wife had both
been given names and set to work
with children's paints and brushes.

So are they thinking (Kerry speculates
of his tormentors, all-those-White-Coats-
looking-into-monkey-minds-and-how-
their-brains-perceive-the-world)
my cage is a round blob to me? 
that tree a longish smudge along the ground? 

Well yes, that sums it up, I guess. 
That's what they think. Paintings 1 to 5,
for instance. Monochrome. 
Dark, blotchy lines. Up and down the page.
Like ink blots that have run together.
Just one light corner. Bottom Right.
(That's where the sun pokes in the cage.)
Painted yellow. And then a growth
of pale blue crystals - seemingly.

First time, though, they all saw
it differently. A memory of the forest then.
Then came the day of darkness and a lorry parked
beside the cage, a blaze of light. Kerry
in his element -- until it moved. Then
he went ape and threw himself around
the cage and hurt his arm. Later he drew
lines across the page before attacking it
with vicious force. The theory was 
he had responded to the shadows of the bars,
the way they'd swept across the floor.

Kerry and Kitty often think 
(the theory also is) of all those images 
of heaven and of hell (their versions of, 
not ours) and sit there staring at 
the latest work (this one jointly executed)
without flinching hours and hours.

Their version of... consists (I'm told)
of shadows moving, creatures looming
(That's their hell) while heaven is
each other and their chattering.

Ask how they know a monkey's thoughts
and the white coats speak of
Stage 2 of their study.
This follows when a painting's 
finished, framed and hung.

The monkey sits 
like someone meditating,
immobilised, except the hands and eyes
are free. But nothing he can reach or see
except the painting. We scan the brain.
Observe which cells light up
and which go out. His latest painting
was a revelation, the way he 
circled blobs with his small finger,
but when we trundled bands of light
and darkness up and down the work
or columns of thick shadow horizontally,
he freaked out totally. Then when we let him go
he made for Kitty, stroked and cuddled her,
then ran back to the painting
and did the same to it. We have concluded 
that it's Kitty birthing fanny.

Their keeper, though, proclaims
he could have done as much -- no need
of scanners, infra red or head 
restraints -- all done with love 
and empathy. I, too, can follow --
 with my eyes -- to see
where their eyes go. 

The birthing picture Kelly worked with brush 
as kitty pointed to herself or stroked
to show where was the hidden birth canal, 
then making circles round her breasts 
and abdomen. Their gestures are
a proto language other monkeys know
(and we could learn if we got close enough)
They painted it small blobs at top 
where Kitty smiled, then larger 
going down to where she grimaced.
At the bottom: cries of pain. 
Biggest and best of all the blobs
with strongest darks and brightest lights
are here. Gold medal goes 
to Baby Fanny's head. 
Big feelings get big contrasts and big blobs.

...and then there was form.

At first there was force
and only force.
Force invaded the void
and tore the void apart.
Only then
could force begin its war on formlessness,
only then could force begin to mould its forms.
Force moulded form both from within
and from the outside.

This force could not be seen
but in its works it could be known.
Whatever else Creation threw its way
it gave a shape and purpose from the gods.

Early on there was a joie de vivre
that took the lead. No one was sure
enough to say that this came from the head
or from the heart, but what was sure
was that it crafted the most gorgeous arabesques.
Form became a visual form
and those with eyes could hear it everywhere.

But also in the forms, concealed from all,
was surplus energy, a spilling of vitality
across the universe. This oomph, this zest,
this liveliness, exuberance was looking
for an outlet, a channel for its own dispersal --
which in the shape of form it found, and in a form
we came to know as dance. This was the Dance
of Life. It would become both form and force, and 
as such was the most contagious thing on earth. 

The lesser forces moulding form from the outside,
forces such as wind, were blown away by it.
It gathered up all that was loose and wayward
and sewed it back into its masterpiece.
The dancer's tresses now were part and parcel
of the dancer's form. Her energy flowed on
and was the most delightful thing on earth --
until its even more delightful child was born:
the love that knitted man into the grand design.

---

The image is a paper cut-out by Matisse entitled Blue Nude with Flowing Hair

Dragonfly in a Spider's Web

And how the hell did I do this?
A web to hold me...? Well,
that's got to be some web - and then some!
Strands of bungy rope, steel hawsers,
they might do... Titanium, no less!
So, how did I not see this edifice, this trap?
Completely blanked it. Flew straight in!
Embarrassing or what? A bloody sin!

Conspicuous by its absence, though,
the owner of this down-town joint, 
whose never met the likes of me! 
This livery should overawe,
it says sod off and know your place.
You, oozing ugliness from every pore,
stand back and bow to natural grace!
For sure, he's up against a bit of class 
and not your normal, stinking fly. Don't think
of me as horse- or house. If that's his stand,
well then his error's more than grand!

I'll keep the web convulsing for a bit...
he's throwing up by now, I'll bet. He hasn't met
vibrations at this level of intensity -- and that's for sure...
or is he boxing clever, waiting 'til my thrashings
have exhausted me? So maybe i'll ease off a tad...
I'll let him get a real good look at me.
I'm bigger, smarter, better kitted out...
I'll let him make his own decision
not to tangle with the likes of me.
Class will out... but what is this? Last thing
I needed... lousy timing... slow paralysis!

Having been inspired by the prompt at Poetry Jam to write a piece on how the world might look to a fly with its many faceted eye, I was then so taken by Mary's fine poem about a spider musing on this prey(here) that I determined to write one from the point of view of the victim. This is it.

Sirens Don't Sit Demurely on the Rocks These Days

The light awhile too bright to look,
the blackness folded in upon itself
and darker than the darkest text in a closed book;
the sea erupting with volcanic force.

Has she a voice to lure stars down onto the rocks?
the force of personality to stretch or bend
the wavelengths of the ocean's echoes, thus to send
the dolphins distant on a wayward course?

And is her voice, the bleep, bleep, bleep, the digital deceit
of interference, satellite experience,reflecting back the songs
of cultures long gone now to the long house under the sea?

Dig this! she says, Dig what the ocean brings you, dig
that the souls roll on, burrowing deep in the rollers 'till
the rollers break in a shatter of spray at the lone land's edge

Yeah, I dig the deep bass of the soul of the beat, the beat
of my soul that I meet in  the roll of the waves;
the rhythmic mix of infinite beats that I draw from the graves,
the watery graves of those from the land who couldn't be saved.

But over it quietly, softly there flies, flows
fathoms that many have set to nought: a new stress:
a trip, a tremble and treble, all mellow as sunlight, 
laid-back as spring - and forging like it, a new way to begin.

---

The title was given to me as I went to collect the morning papers. I opened the shop door as another customer said it over his shoulder as a parting remark. A remark right out of context for me, but it suggested the poem.

A Groovy Kind of Love?

This is what we meant by spin
before the doctors of politics
collared it
made it their own --
us whiling away
days to remember at H.M.V.
feeling the way of the vinyl
as slowly it turned
into something more final.
Spinal perhaps,
like the spine of a book
that neither had read
or a cord that ran through it.

Then spin letting sin
creep into the frame.
Two partners in crime
but under the skin.
Not knowing the rules of the game. 
Well trusted friend
grooming me. 
(This
I know now -- though he,
I am sure, did not see it so.)

Bach. Brahms. Beethoven. Britten. Liszt. All
of them tarred with the same brush, kissed
by the devil. But fit to fight back --
and how fit they were!
He bought me my first new L.P.
my earliest Britten
and first symphony.
(My very first set)
Yet no one suspected a thing.
Did they know, I wonder,
that such things were?
The world was different then.

Looking back, it was spin
and spin time I valued,
remember the best.
The time in the cubicle,
sound-proofed and bullet proof
just he and I
spinning the discs,
trapped by the vinyl
lost in the sound.

(Serving in Italy
during the war
he'd seen too much
of what happens to guys
who go with girls.
Hence, I suppose, 
there was me. I was clean.)

Later. Unease.
Feeling something was wrong.
Keeping a distance.
Later still. Guilt.
I'd taken his gifts,
but giving them back
would involve explanations.

Image as prompt from Tess Kincade at The Mag

The Thaw : Tanka and Haiku

beneath the downpipe
yesterday's solid ice block
tiny fragments now
fracturing the early light
sparkle there like diamonds

the children's snowman
runnelled by its melt water
becomes a snow sphinx

in the snow's slow thaw
tracks suggest a beast on stilts
half-crossed the front lawn
stopped at the magnolia --
before melting like the snow

spots on cars and doors
the children have played snowballs -
infectious frolic!

Going Viral

You want a youthful view on social networks, Gov?
It'll be the fifteen days of fame syndrome for sure --
was fifteen minutes, but that died a death.
That's what the young kids cut their teeth on now.
But us, the grandees of the game, we're more extreme,
we're after more -- We're in it for to win it, Guv'!

I see the social network as a broadsheet, no?
A democratic paper, not one that spouts democracy.
Everyone writes his or her own column, yeah?
No editors to keep us all in check with That
aint policy, old son, you can't write that! 
So! -- Full of all the  stuff then, that the public wants.
Gossip is my speciality. And crime. 
I do a lot of crime from time to time.
I find it very popular. Now say
I write tomorrow how I aim to kill
the cat in Downing Street -- but wrap it up, like,
so as no one understands it 'till I do --
but when I do... then Bingo! I go viral, see?
And all the world knows who and what I am!
My readership goes stratospheric, man!
The noughts go running off the flippin' chart.

That's what it's all about. To be there at the death...
All papers have to boost their circulation. no?
Im' just the same as any big sheet up in town.
Some guys are into sexting now. Not me!
I leave that sort of shit to them. That's like
your page three boobs and bums. That's common, man.
I'm more your classy writer with an intellectual edge.

They tell me I'm abusing what I love,
a medium of value to mankind.
But everything's abused these days because
the world has changed while things have stayed the same.
Abuse or do not use it, that's the choice, 
coz that's the way of things these days -- things as they are.
We play with words, so words don't mean a thing.
That's why I stick to pictures, man. Know what I mean?

---

Written for Brian Miller's beautiful prompt Reaching the Masses for Poetics at dVerse Poets.

Building Worlds : Crystalia

The glazier
who replaced my broken window pane
used fairy glass. Now when I look
at midnight
or when the moon is full
I see a landscape I have come to call  
Crystalia.

The apple tree,
its branches woven into wings,
has taken flight.
The apples, green and red,
are navigation lights,
are naked flames
that take uncommon shape
from movements of the wings.

The ethereal glow,
much brighter than the moon,
appears to flow 
from every object in my view,
and if I close my eyes
and wander out and through the copse,
the change is more complete,
for looking up, the stars, 
I see, have left the sky.
They hang now from the branches 
like a thousand chandeliers.

Sometimes a star falls from a branch
and fiscles on the ground
and earth turns slowly round 
the sprijly, sprounding thing 
until it cristles out.
But all the while it fiscles there
a silent music fills the air
and I am more content;
content with earth and fellow men
and what life holds for me.

It's winter now, 
and rainbow coloured snow falls,
glowing, on the fields.
Some rises up in spectral forms
to whisper up the distant peaks
like mountaineers together roped
with twisted tongues of fire. 
Some merely lies, heaves, smoulders, 
shines, like a great sea
of coloured mercury.

Sometimes the dreaded Tube will come,
building slowly like a summer storm
as black clouds round its edges spin
and mix the elements of good and bad
that threaten from within. I've seen 
it swallow oak trees whole and spit 
out animals as big as cows. But then,
when Graunules swim above the trees,
you know the tube has spent its ire
and all is well again.

---

Written for Kerry's Wednesday Challenge , Building Worlds at imaginary garden with real toads though regrettably written a few days late.

On Creativity Notes Towards a Poem

Creativity comes
when what you have controlled for long, escapes
and does the thing it always meant to do,
the thing it had been nudging you to do,
but you were somewhere else, your mind on other things.

There was a shape emerging from my thoughts
that changed profoundly when I looked away.

Sometimes the best lines are written while I sleep.
I go to bed with them rattlling around in my mind, not quite working,
and in the morning they are there, waiting for me in final draft form -
but so ephemeral; the act of writing down the first of them erases all 
the rest. And needless to say, the original lines, unless I wrote 
them down, are gone for good. I am amazed at Coleridge's tale of 
The Visitor from Porlock (here), how he (Coleridge) could have 
remembered so much for so long and in such detail.

I'd worked all evening on the two ideas, could not resolve them,
went to sleep still playing with them in my mind. What happened
while I slept I cannot say, only that the brain must have gone into
its processing mode, so that by morning they were mixed in great
confusion. I could not even think them back to how they'd been.
But now they fitted easily together.

A shape, a colour or a sound, they all may change in some
altered status of the mind: asleep, awake, distracted or  intoxicated.

The inspiration moment always catches me off guard.
I cannot ever say what I'd been thinking at the moment that
it struck. It is as though I've hammered out an artefact and cannot  then
remember how the metal was.

Inspiration is seeing beauty change its shape

If an artwork does not feel finished and I cannot take it further, 
either I have not worked hard enough on it
or else I have not waited long enough.

Sometimes it feels as though you're fighting with the angel

Looking back over these notes I am struck by the the realisation that
they mostly seem to involve looking away or an absence of the mind or
some such state or action. 

Written for Anna Montgomery's Meeting the Bar prompt on Creativity 
at dVerse Poets

Breaking All the Rules

It's how he sees it!
runs the comment often heard
of too-demanding art.

For centuries the rules
were there to guide the brush --
rules that trammelled thought.

Marcel Duchamp with
a urinal -- pet named Fountain --
broke them all at once.

That art is not art
except demanding of  technique 
and great proficiency.

Art is something made
by artists according to
set rules and guidelines

to find an object
then to claim it as your art
insults the viewer.

Duchamp did not see
a world made strange from ours, but
thought with a new set of rules.

Look at some child art.
The house is not a house you know.
The child has formed the rules,

has not learnt ours
but once it does, our scales will fall
upon its eyes  -- and
sadly then, upon the pearl
of its imagination.

Written as a second submission to the Poetry Jam prompt Breaking all the Rules

The Artist Must be Free - or: The Practise of Practice

Two years into the piano
and not much further on
I take up violin -- and
what a difference!It sings!
My instrument, no doubt!
A maestro in the making,
I am sure of it -- that is
until my teacher, saintly,
white haired, gentle, kind
and ancient Janet Lawson,
terminates the lessons on
hearing that I practice it 
in bed. does she not know
art can't be bound by rules?

She's still will teach me
the piano, though... happy
in the thought, no doubt
that given its great size
and weight, there's little
chance that I'll be tempted
back to my Bohemian ways...
.............................

A little belatedly submitted to Poetry Jam's prompt Breaking all the Rules