Moved Eos Blog Site to Wordpress

For those of you who are wondering,
I have moved this site to wordpress. Its at:

http://eosthecreativecontext.wordpress.com/

Hope to see you there!

Bea Garth

The Rivers Run Away In Their Own Direction And Vanish To Flow Under Other Skies

by Greg Hall
copyright 2007, 2008

This world may never change
Though a grain of sand and the wide curve of sky
Change every instant
Every man a rip-tide breaking on himself
Every woman an undertow
The fluid knots tying and untying themselves
Under the flat gun-metal of the bay
Men with guns guard every diamond
The real treasure hidden in a handful of dirt
The joy is wandering with empty hands
Embraced by the wind and immersed in the changing light
That falls on us in the course of a day
One among an endless number
Swept away inside remorseless and merciful tides
Moved here and there under the constellations
Born to live inside the ecstatic journey
Which is nothing more than a traveler on a short visit
With both eyes open
and the hands always empty
Moving about beneath the treasure of the sky
And over the treasure of the earth
Weightless and amazed
And drunk inside the rain.

Note: This poem was previously published in the Redwood Coast Review, November 2007.

Obedience

by John Kurtyka
copyright 2008
computer enhanced drawing

Figs

by Bea Garth
copyright 2008

I reach up
and pick the tender sacks
amongst the gnarled branches
the sun filling both the fruit and my desire
barely shaded by the sparse green leaves
as I think of us
in the wee hours of the night and morning
describing the twists of the honey bee
and the bounty of the Goddess
saving us both
despite our tortured pasts,
our smiles deepening
sharing honeyed passion
savored like these sweet gritty seeds
I bite into
red and pink
beneath the sun purpled skin.

The above poem is in Eating The Peach, a book of poems and drawings about love, illusion and self discovery, soon to be published by Crooked Running Tail Press.

Bea Garth will be the featured reader at the Sept. 18th, 2008 Thursday Gig. She will be reading from the proofs of her manuscript Eating the Peach as well as more recent poems. The Gig will be at the Stone Griffin Gallery, 287 E. Campbell Ave., Campbell, CA near the corner of 1st and Campbell Ave. The gallery is in a loft upstairs. Al Preciado will be the featured artist. Open Mic follows the featured reader. The Potluck starts at 6:30 PM; featured artist talk at 7:15; featured poet at 7:30; Open Mic. follows. Call 408 410-2313 for more information.

Red Sneakers

by John Kurtyka
computer enhanced drawing
copyright 2008

Waking To A Thought Of A Shark

by Bea Garth
copyright 2008

You tell me your mind is like a white shark
as we walk amongst the aisles at Albertson’s,*
I buy yogurt and bananas and you a submarine sandwich
--and suddenly I see you
with your eyes gleaming
sparkling with dangerous
mischievous intelligence,
your mouth wanting to chew
on the minds of others,
wanting to swallow our whole civilization.
You swim down the aisle
like a shark smelling the fish,
the blood, the discarded entrails
chumming the water
from the boat called “Western Man”
and I being a woman wonder
where is the Goddess, the Nurturer
except in the food that poisons your body?

Your Goddess is like a crusty old crab
moving sideways, hiding amongst
the seashells and half eaten bones
that your teeth missed.
I want to take her, to take her
and your mouth
and your excellent eyes and nose,
and say yes, look at the detritus,
but also look at yourself—
what kind of shark are you
when you yourself are poisoned by the chum,
by the bright neon lights
of the supermarket aisles
and extruded civilization?

I look at your soft white underbelly
as you circle your prey dreaming of mermaids
with their thick shining tails and full breasts
and long hair wafting about them like seaweed
in the magazine and video sections
and I wonder if you will ever
be more like them,
enjoying the soft sensuousness of the sea,
the discovery and play of being in water without needing to kill,
without needing to open those sharp teeth
quite so wide. Gingerly,
I put my hand in yours
and you grin, winking at me,
your body swaying
slightly voluptuous yet dangerous
as we round the bend.

(*Albertson’s is a chain grocery store in the Pacific Northwest)

Note: this poem is from Eating the Peach, a book of poetry and drawings by Bea Garth about love, illusion and self discovery. Bea will be reading from the galleys of this new book at the Thursday Gig reading September 18th at the Stone Griffin Gallery at 287 E. Campbell Ave., Campbell Ave. in Campbell, CA. Phone: 408 806-1352 for more information .

TO LIVE AND DIE ON EARTH

by Greg Hall
copyright 2008

Hamburgers sizzling
On an open grille
"and Chuck Berry
Is so glad to be"
"back in the USA"
How
Ever
"Mikes
"do
"not
"make
"the
"man
And
ALL
"slides"
"away"
"before"
Your
Personal
And actual
Feet
"Despite your"
"education"
And all that followed it
And "all"
Preceding "it"
)?
Your
Nates
Sizzling
On a grille
)a big eraser removing all exits
)"Lenny Bruce and Robert Crumb and Sartre
)"gone gone so GONE"
And
"you"
Are on
"your"
"own"
)"ART"
)"IS
)"smegma"
"THIS"
"IS"
)the
)beginning

Here Kitty

by John Kurtyka
computer enhanced drawing
copyright 2008

Two Deserts

A Message to Environmentalists
by Erik Sutter-Kaye
Chigasaki, Japan
8/20/08

Until you understand the nature of the unfolding environmental situation, your efforts to reverse its process will be in vain. There is no chance of undoing the damage to the environment perpetrated in the Industrial Age. It is too late for that; it has been too late for some time now. Which is not to say that things cannot get better; they can and will, but not before they get worse. But turning the clock back to the way the Earth was before the Industrial Revolution, that is not going to happen. Restoring the Earth isn't about utilizing breaking science and technology.

It isn't about engaging in a Global New Deal. It's not about trading Carbon Credits. It's not about replacing gasoline-fueled, tarmac- riding automobiles with ethanol- or electric- or hydrogen-fueled tarmac-riding automobiles. It's not about reversing global warming. It's not about being a White Knight in dazzling White Armor and riding in to untie Mother Nature tied on the train track.

It's not possible to do these things. It's too big for us. It's too late. Some of us saw this destiny of planetary desertification coming thirty, forty years ago, perhaps longer. But we didn't listen
to us; we didn't think clearly or well about how to warn ourselves. (Spiking trees? Tossing acid in whaling boats? What were we thinking?!) We might have stopped these self-destructive
trends then if we understood the true nature of it; but we didn't then and for the most part we still don't.

It's about admitting the mistakes of the past. Of History. And yes, I just used the word self-destructive. It's our nature we have an opportunity, and responsibility, to correct, and not anything else. It's about opening up our hearts to the grief. It's about discovering that the grief-- our personal grief, grief of lost species, lost habitats, grief of lost opportunities-- although finite, appears to be infinite. It's about deciding as a global society to stop escaping from the grief, and turning around to embrace it, without being consumed by it.

Above all, its about memory. We are on the verge, as a 7 billion-person-strong Global Village, of remembering the last Planetary Crisis, roughly 6 to 8 thousand years ago. When the vast grasslands from Morocco, in Africa, all the way to the great savanna in Mongolia in Central Asia, all wilted and died and turned against humanity, against all life, in a sandy inferno that still burns today.

Recorded history began in the aftermath of this great Old World famine that consumed the center of the populations in the Eastern Hemisphere. The record shows us a steady trend of migration, for 5 or more thousands of years, out of the bitter lands. Throughout the Old World (excluding Australia) the essential experience of epidemic starvation has been transmitted to every corner of the vast human expansion that began in Africa 7 million years ago.

Through war and scorched earth, through socialized traditions of violence to women and children, human slavery, and the apprehension of the reproductive process as a weapon of war to out-populate the enemy, the essential emotional conditions of the Great Old World Famine have been exported at present to the 7 continents and the Seven Seas.

Like the woman who was raped as a young girl, and maintains in her adult life a consistent pattern of self-destructive sexual relationships (with men who resemble her rapist) 20th and 21st Century human societies have been slowly and steadily replicating the moral values and conditions of desert survival into the abundance of the wooded, forested vastness of Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond.

We who carried this pain into Paradise are the walking wounded, surviving descendants of the Great Saharan-Asian Inferno circa 6000 BC -4000 BC. (“BCE” is for wussies!- E.S-K) Sworn to survive no matter how, we carry within our broken psyches a distorted sense of identity, like an Operating System in a software package that is riddled with glitches and bugs. Like a bad OS, we are neither straight nor true, yet we know how to boogie-- we carry within us memories of our condition before the Saharan-Asian Inferno f___d us up.

How can anything good come of a technological fix, when we environmentalists who would do the fixing are carrying the same inherited distortions of history as any corporate robber baron or Warlord? I see a clear pattern in so-called Post-Modern society, of modern institutions from the United Nations down to privately-run think tanks, attempting to solve far-reaching problems with plans that don't include a consideration of the planners' own completely human predilection for self-deception.

Modern history is rife with examples of big fixes that created bigger problems that generated a quantum of large fixes that just keep on expanding exponentially, until the whole system collapses. (I think, for example, of the whole history of the CIA, who has a history of arming rebels against a mutual enemy until the enemy is defeated and the rebels become the new enemy. And what does the CIA do? They go find a new group to arm!)

Our human survival at any level depends upon the emergence of a critical mass of women and men of all cultures who can reverse the societal trends of escapism and emotional suppression that keep buried the old racial memories. Then we can fully remember the buried memory of the Great Saharan-Asian Inferno. We must then all link up, all of us who remember, in order to maximize the practice of collective emotional support. This will be necessary since the emerging memories of our buried past will be devastating to us without a collective structure to anchor our healthy spirits onto. Then finally can we emerge simultaneously from the Two Deserts: the Desert of our buried past, and the Desert of our present unfolding on every continent before us.

For those of you who read this, you need never again fault or blame yourselves or your own species' capacity for stupidity and greed. That would burden you unnecessarily with self-loathing. Rather, take pride on yourself for emerging, however incompletely, from the past infernos, and have compassion for the great wounds and trials you and your ancestors have incurred. Each and every one of us , scientist and terrorist, visionary and prostitute, are all a piece in the puzzle of getting over the current evolutionary challenge. For there is nothing we have ever done, or can do, that Nature hasn't provided for. We are not separate from Nature; we are not separate from God. The coming crisis of Global Warming is exactly necessary to recalibrate the Gaiain Computer.

Note: Erik invites comments on this essay. He would like nothing better than to be either agreed or disagreed with. Given the current goings on with Gustav reminding us of the killing torrents of Katrina on the eve of the RNC, this article as well as discussion of the environment in general seems more important now more than ever.
-----Bea Garth, editor

Blood For Oil

by John Kurtyka
copyright 2008



Note: This is part of a series of small drawings enlarged and manipulated on the computer. If you are interested in it or others for sale, please let us know and I will inform the artist.

Hump

by David Larimore
copyright 2008


This is another of David Larimore's elegantly whimsical and originally rendered new series of paintings.

To have a taste of his work come to Thursday Gig at Got Art? Gallery, August 21, 2008 at 24 N. Santa Cruz Ave. in Los Gatos--as well as hear poets Evelyn So and Wendy Taylor Carlisle. Potluck and experimental music by John Kurtyka and Chris Arcus begins at 6:30 PM; featured artist Q & A at 7:15. Featured poets at 7:30. Open Mic follows featured poets.

Judgment Day

by Evelyn A. So
copyright 2008

We’re back here again, caught
in this endless kírkos of blame.
Who owes whom? How much?
Until when?

Even if we forgive each other’s
old debts, another roomful
waits for the chance to come
face to face with its creator.

Karma, your currency’s no good
here; it’s our faith that’s in mortal
danger. What’s the sum
of our deficits and saving
graces? The chips are down

and the wheel keeps spinning.
Only the banker knows what
change to make and the back
door to the house where all
bets come.

Note: “Judgment Day” is featured in the new issue of Reed Magazine.

Evelyn So will be featured along with poet Wendy Taylor Carlisle and artist David Larimore this August 24th, 2008 at Thursday Gig at 24 N. Santa Cruz Avenues, 6:30-9:30 PM. Improvisational music will be played by John Kurtyka and Chris Arcus.

Anima-Lover

by David Larimore
copyright 2008



This is another of David Larimore's new paintings that may be included in his show at Thursday Gig at Got Art? Gallery on August 21, 2008 at 24 Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos, CA 6:30-9:30 PM with poets Evelyn So and Wendy Taylor Carlisle.

Green Dancer

by Elizabeth Parashis
acrylic on paper
copyright 2008
click to enlarge image

Homage to Charles M. Schulz

by Evelyn A. So
Copyright 2008

How dare you dance!
scolded Lucy. Don’t you know
there are problems in this world?
How’s dancing going to solve them?

And Linus might have said:
for everything there is a season—
a time to cry, a time to dance!

But he and Snoopy laugh themselves silly,
spinning arm in arm and singing.
And along comes Woodstock
and Sally and Charlie Brown
and Schroeder and Peppermint Patty and Marcie,
even Lucy and the girl with naturally curly hair
kick up their heels.

As one beagle might
bang on the typewriter
— the world’s full of possibility
for those who greet it
with open arms. Even Lucy agrees
when she takes the doctor’s seat.
Five cents please.

Note: “Homage to Charles M. Schulz” is featured in Reed Magazine’s new website, http://www.reedmag.org.

The above poem is an ekphrastic poem that Evelyn was inspired to write while studying ekphrastic poetry (poetry about other art forms) in the spring of 2007.

Paul Klee

by David Larimore
copyright 2008
please click on picture to enlarge



Note: David Larimore will be showing his work at Thursday Gig, August 21, 2008 at Got Art? Gallery at 24 N. Santa Cruz Ave. in downtown Los Gatos, CA. The Gig will be from 6:30 until 9:30 PM.

Dreaming of Nasturtiums — or The Red Empress

by Bea Garth
copyright 2008

The garden dreams of nasturtiums
yellow climbing the walls
Red Empress of India
and poppies, poppies, poppies
opening up laudanum
for the humming birds
whirring that message
zipping into one’s brain
the sunlight
the green leaves
the cats pouncing on crickets
the worms cogitating in the mounds
lifting breast like
as the yellow and green summer squash
trumpet Peter Pans and zucchinis
for us to eat
for us to loll and enjoy our tears
feeding the soil
removing the rocks
squashing the armies
of snails and slugs
hiding under the abalone shells
and river rocks and bricks
lining the garden
circling the apricot tree
and I see you sitting on the grass
as I bend over the breasts
the black/brown mounds
the wire baskets tunneling out
into the sky like scaffolds
rising rising our spirits
our dreams
me in my bare feet
you with your flowered
tight underpants
paint splotched and worn
building the fence
between our yard and the next
a pale blue/gray
echoing the snap beans
the beans we made love amongst
like two empyreans
two nymphs
like satyrs
like the Empress of India
in her red robes and green finery
oh how she smiles
as we eat her flowers
and round scalloped leaves
oh how we smile
as we cut the lemon cucumbers
and oil them
feeling the coolness
reminding me of last year’s
long elongate trumpets of cukes
hanging like dicks
and the witches I shared them with
in our circle circled
by all those red shining tomatoes
reflecting your red and green robes
our delight profound
our delight as we cried
into the earth.

Videus-omnia

by David Larimore
acrylic painting
copyright 2008



"Fingers held upon one's lips. In this painting I wanted to convey the elusive state of humbling oneself enough to fully-take-in ; before inevitably asserting comprehension via necessary but imperfect words. A recognition of the sublime Wholeness beyond perhaps any one persons full illumination."--David Larimore

Note: This is one of David Larimore's new series of paintings which will be shown at the next Thursday Gig in Los Gatos on August 21st, 2008. For more info. contact Elizabeth at artpages@earthlink.net. The venue will either be up in the Los Gatos hills in the courtyard at 42 Central Ave. or at Got Art? in downtown Los Gatos. More details of the exact location later as we learn more...

FAST EXPRESSION

by Greg Hall
copyright 2008

JB utters the seven
syllables of “BLUES”
in less time than anybody WHO
was ever BORN
“people”
“let me”
“tell you”
“the news”
)the “cold”
“sweat”
of 3 A.M.
“Got nothing”
“ON ME”
but people
let me
tell YOU
the “old” “guy”
“THING”
“is”
“UNDER”
“RATED”
You HANGAROUND
WIT ME
A BIT
“You”
“WILL”
“GET”
“SOME”
“BLUES” said
with seven syllables
SO QUICK
“You don’t know”
“whether to run”
“shit”
or
“go”
“blind”
Love
You
BABY

Cherries

by Bea Garth
copyright 2008

I ate up almost all
of the black Bing cherries
this afternoon thinking of you
driving my blue pick up from Portland
to Eugene, eating Royal Annes
just picked from the old fruit farm
where you are staying ensconced
in a miniature bus
so clean and white and fresh
with its bare tatami mats, feeling open,
despite its postage stamp size
and the gray rain and time-spotted exterior.
Now it is sunny and warm this afternoon
just after experiencing July third and fourth
with you, sharing gas expenses,
going to a slide show,
having brunch with your old
vagabond poet friend
and his cohorts and my poet friend
who is about to leave for the East Coast.

Three cherries still sit in the white
ceramic bowl on the blue table cloth.
The sun streams in from under
the window shade.
Earlier I stretched out on the back lawn
and let my legs bask in the sun
while my head lay in the shade
and I looked up at the wisteria pods
and twisting bark. And I remember
the little girl during brunch
who wondered what that lump was
on your throat and I told her
that it was an Adam’s Apple,
and that most men have them,
it’s just more obvious in some
than in others – and I looked
at your long neck red from the sun
and your corny South Dakota humor
and later you asked for some black tea
with a pretend English accent
while up above us yellow butterflies
flew a patterned loop
in and out of the fruit trees
overhead.

Note: this poem will appear in my book of poems and drawings this Fall called Eating The Peach.
-----Bea Garth

Platero Amongst The Marsh Grasses

by Bea Garth
copyright 1998, 2008


This drawing was done for the 1998 musical performance of "Platero Y Yo"-- wherein the Spanish guitar music was inspired by the Pulitzer Prize winning poems by Juan Ramon Jimenez. I imagined an idyllic setting wherein Platero (the wise donkey) was relaxing in a marsh next to his friend, the poet -- with the poet now amongst his family (which in the poems he did not have).
-----Bea Garth

A Call For Readers

Robert Claus is looking for readers to help create an audio version of his poems about California called Bear Songs. He plans to make audio recordings with different Californians reading his work. Each poem explores specific places, others specific events or states of mind. Each work will be read by a different voice and arranged into a unique audible set that reflects the theme and setting of the piece. The actual recordings will take place in the Bay Area with the finished album slated to appear on Sound Press Records later this year. "So dust off that old microphone, warm up those 'chords & let me hear what you've got!" ----- Robert Claus

To hear an example of the recordings go to:

http://www.soundpressrecords.com/theCrowbard.html

You can read Robert Claus' collection of poems at: http://homepage.mac.com/clausr/Crowbard/index.html

If interested in participating in this project, contact Robert at: clausr@mac.com

Sunset Beach Vignette

by Robert Claus
copyright 2008

The evening breeze combs dune grass for old conversations
and chases empty words in sandy spirals towards the parking lot,
where wide-eyed cars wait blindly for the night.

I listen with the empty mussels and beak-cracked crabs for mermaids or monsters,
listen to the placid ocean lisp its endless disappointments to the patient beach, listen
to the crude seagulls shriek their hunger to the frigid, salty air.

The evening climbs slowly down the smokestacks at Moss Landing and tarnishes
the leaden Bay a dull, indifferent grey that smudges out the line between
the ocean and the sullen, sinking sky.

I listen to the beach sigh in resignation beneath my feet,
(somewhere in the bitter mist a dog barks at the waves)
and trudge back up the dunes, to the tarmac and my car.

On the beach, gusts spin the litter of discarded conversations
across the sand to settle in the grass
as dead-word drifts among the dunes.

Note: from Robert Claus' collection of poems about California, called Bear Songs soon to appear in an audio version. Please see his Call for Readers above.

Stinker

by Bea Garth
copyright 1998, 2008




"This drawing was inspired by part of the human condition ( i.e., feeling wry and uncomfortable). It will appear this Fall in my upcoming book of poems and drawings: Eating the Peach."
-----Bea Garth

Bower Bird's Nest Constructions

by Linna Muschlitz and friends: Wendy Snetsinger, Jean Giddins, Dorothy Durremberger
copyright 2008

The first of three sculptural nest constructions "inspired by the Bower bird's nest" (more later):












These are three of "8 pieces we did which we photographed on white walls but they look grey. The twigs are my idea and the flat weaving is Jean's idea, who is a weaver. I wanted 3-d but this is what we all decided. Red twig dogwood. grape vine, string and lace, or buttons. These are hung in the panels between the wooden supports. They all look great except for the Bower birds.

We each made two wall sculptures. We used a cardboard loom and then cut them off and hung them. Some are very airy.

Names -- I can't remember who did what. But these are the artist's names:
Linna Muschlitz - provided sticks circles and airy negative space piece, Center piece. Wendy Snetsinger- invited me to bring my art form to the church - white lace wall piece. Jean Giddins - professional loom weaver. Dorothy Durremberger- with small basket and green ribbon woven into stick weaving.

Everyone is a professional artist. Dorothy and I do 3-d Jean and Wendy are 2-d or mixed media in 2-d/."

-----Linna Muschlitz, Pennsylvania

Unhindered (for Ruth Asawa)

by Kelly Cressio-Moeller 
copyright  2008

Pathways curling into curved meanders
Exploring the subtle duality of space
Chevron patterns neat as garden rows
Bright with sleight of hand color tension
Releasing shimmering optical vibrations


A slender bend of industrial wire
Heralding interlaced trumpets
Blowing amber-glow tranquility
And dandelion spore reflections
Across ceiling, wall, and floor


Tied-wire cartwheels
Anchored from on high
Awaiting our childhood monkey-bar swings
From shadowed branch to shadowed branch
A mystic woodland of our own


Forms within forms
Crocheted, cocooning teardrop wombs
Nesting, resting within themselves
Umbilical hourglasses connecting us all
By a lifeline of elongated possibility and suspended joy


A precise reticulation of roads
Clean, clear, infinite
Traveling heroic and unhindered
Mapping the belief that:
                   

                             "A line can go anywhere"

The Wind Storms Outside

by Bea Garth

copyright 2008

Your curtains billow

and gleam slightly of gold

as we talk of forests, seas and continents,

the gods having raised their fists

at each of us

and we, like two Odysseus’

finally meet to tell our tales

and laugh at the twists and turns

while we marvel at these gifts

we’ve wrest despite

the monsters’ traps

and treacherous seas.

We sing to each other

words wild as the wind

and just as quickly

images like trees, earthy and green,

while the beach lies pregnant

frothed by the ocean’s hiss.

We don’t notice the time

‘til the sun

silhouettes our bodies

in the morning’s golden rays

as we shake hands

and go our separate ways.

Note: this is a poem which will be appearing in "Eating The Peach"--my new book of poems and drawings to be published early this Fall.

The Itch

by Bea Garth
copyright 1982, 2008
pen and ink drawingThis drawing will soon appear in Eating The Peach, a book of poems and drawings of mine about love and illusion. This particular drawing was from when I lived in Seattle in 1982 and "gave up art" and started doodling--which started me on the (artistic) path I am still on with ceramic sculpture as well as drawing and now painting.
-----Bea Garth

SPEAK THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED

by Greg Hall

copyright 2008

Morning arrived without an invitation
It was just that evening was so beautiful
The sunrise started following it around
I don’t know where your luminous paleness ends
And the black heart of midnight begins
The borders are opaque
Even in the black some light gets in
The blood finds its way
Just like a new-born river
Goes where it must to continue to flow
Otherwise it must become a lake
Breathing in motionless splendor
Guard of light and a passive victim of the moon
But we
Are
about
Rivers
Inexplicably encountering each other
Crowded with rubies among the white stones
We broke all the laws
Standing in the kitchen
Under very bright lights the curve of your back
Your breasts high in a plum tree
And the nipples fiery and tender
Eclipsing the rare gems the night had buried
Inside my body and my dreams
I woke up and knew your milk arrayed
Upon a landscape of white gold
Drowned in an air that could only be the daughter of the ocean
And we love each other
The way the night follows the morning
Enthralled and justified
Because the black stone from the endless vastness of night
Must warm and glow and be consumed in fire to reach the earth
And the pure air surrounding us while we embrace
Contains the light and heat of the meteor fallen
Sacrifice from the heart of night
That we might fly
In our quick night
And rest in an exhausted paradise
Mementos of this impossible journey
Strung along your belly
Like dew
From
heaven
Forever.

Tracy 2

by Elizabeth Parashis
copyright 2008
acrylic on paper
Note: click on picture for a larger image

power plant

by janet crawford trenchard
copyright 2008   

driving along in the dark
earth and sea to either side
expecting to be surprised as always
by silvery stilts
rising out of the mist, Atlantis
spreading its net oflights
I wonder
if I missed it somehow
then  suddenly  crane my neck
to see it standing there
on stiff spiderlegs, unlit
a driveby tour of a dead fairyland
some woeful message
spelled out in enormous runes
indecipherable, reaching out to us
from oblivion

Hawaiian Girl

by Elizabeth Parashis
copyright 2008
acrylic on board
note: click picture to see a larger version

IF I WERE

by Bea Garth
copyright 2008

If I were me
and you were you
what would we do?
Would we laugh and cry
give each other our hearts
and swear not to die,
if I were me
and you were you?

Instead we pace and stumble
being ever so humble
never learning to trust,
laughing at our disgust.
I hold myself in a huff,
stamp my feet
and let my heart rust
locking up the need
to laugh and cry.

Instead I realize
I am me
and you are you
and there is nothing
each other can do
while the cats meow
and the sparrows titter
hopping and pecking,
all stamping
and seeming to say
“That is that!”
as each flies, runs away.

Megane: Kintaro's Eyeglasses

by Erik Kaye
copyright 2008
watercolor
note: click picture to see a larger version


Here's what Erik has to say about the above painting:
"Megane: Kintaro's Eyeglasses, that's pronounced Meh-gah-neh, which is the word prominently spelled in reverse in the upper left-hand corner of the windows, and means eyeglasses. The cartoony head beside the big word is Kintaro-- Golden Taro or Golden Boy-- a folk legend who is the mascot for "Megane Do-rah-gu* (Megane Drugs Incorporated).

Please note this is a work-in-progress. Most of the details are in place, but it needs a lot of tweaking to give the plane of reflective mirror-glass the sheen that was the goal when I began this painting. "
-----Erik Kaye

ODE TO WOLFMAN GREGGIE

by Greg Hall
copyright 2008

When I was bom my father wore a lab coat
The first words audible were
"it's alive, it's al-l-l-l-ive ... "
Igor stood by and told the old man
"I'm glad your first child is a masculine child"
I ran with the wolves until I was seventeen
The villagers came with torches and burned the castle
But it was empty
It had always been empty
When the moon got full
My face broke out in fur
My teeth felt sharp and I had tons of energy
I became obsessed with Hank Williams
I was ready for love
I was drowning in love
And had no voice
No way to speak to another
Of the vast seas which were navigating me
I hid inside the rain
I hid inside the sunlight
I could only be seen under starlight
Seen
But
Not
Heard
I was the howling child
Muted by history
This went on for a long time
But one day this blonde girl
Looking to get out of the rain
Crawled under a boat propped up on the beach
And she taught me to write
My name in the sand
And then taught me to speak
One letter at a time
And then to weave the letters into a word
The words into sentences
And then
To Sing
She kissed me and bade me farewell
Now after this I wove a shirt made up completely of words
In my shirt I can go anywhere and pass for human
When I meet people I say "Spanish Lace"
or "Flamenco Oranges Impersonate My Tears"
Its only in the middle of three A.M.
I wake up trembling and remember my life
As the Monster's Son
Though still after writing a poem
I must admit
My teeth
Feel
Sharper

Flamenco Dancers

by Elizabeth Parashis
copyright 2008
acrylic on board
note: click picture to see a larger version

"Thursday Gig" Los Gatos art/poetry/memoir salon

photo of Thursday Gig spoken word reading in Los Gatos, CA
by Bea Garth, copyright 2008

link to Mercury News article
by Bea Garth

For those who would like to know, I am posting the link to an article recently published in the Los Gatos Weekly Times and the San Jose Mercury News about Thursday Gig, the monthly art, poetry/memoir, potluck event that Elizabeth Parashis and I host in Los Gatos and, beginning this Fall, in Campbell at the Stone Griffin Gallery (more on this later). The article is by Heather Zimmerman and can be found here at:
http://www.mercurynews.com/losgatos/ci_9613915

In the article, Heather compares our Thursday Gig to the European salons of the 17th and 18th centuries--with a 21st century twist--since we the artists are hosting the event rather than the cultured rich. This way we the artists (including writers) inspire each other as well as our audience. I have a quote somewhere that advises that the true artist creates his or her audience; so here we have it at Thursday Gig. The amazing thing is that it really is working. We hope this idea catches on elsewhere.

We now have the Gig regularly on the 3rd Thursday except for December when we take a holiday hiatus. For more information please contact Elizabeth at artpages@earthlink.net.

Note:
Thursday, July 17th, 6:30 - 9:30 pm
Thursday Gig: Poetry and Art

at "Got Art? Gallery"
24 N Santa Cruz Ave, Los Gatos, CA
This is a new, temporary location in downtown Los Gatos for Thursday Gig (thanks to the L.G.A.A.!), at the previous Linda Durnell Gallery site -- so please take note!! It is a beautiful space so we are thankful to have this opportunity to show in it. Pia Di Stefano's fantastic artwork should shine in this elegant space plus the spoken word art of our featured poets Chris Arcus and Erica Goss will likely resonate. It should be a very fun night!

POTLUCK/BYOB begins at 6:30 pm

Art Q & A begins at 7:15 pm
Featured poetry reading begins at 7:30 pm

Open Mic follows.

Features:
Artist Pia Di Stefano will be featuring her paintings and drawings described as "painting her inner inferno". She exhibits in Italy, Switzerland, Spain and in New York Galleries. And then Open mike.

Poets: poet/musician Chris Arcus and award winning poet Erica Goss.

On Exploring This New Emptiness

by Bea Garth
copyright 2008

Emptiness fills me while life around me buzzes,
a new man takes an interest but I hardly want to bother.
What shadows am I fighting? What lessons must I learn?
I think of you with your long legs draped elegantly
across the length of the couch,
your smile delighted when I would crawl on top of you.
I could have another but for what?
What hungry beasts we are, what lonely creatures.

I know there are reasons you had to leave.
We were after all two opposites:
you tidy, me complicated; you logical, me intuitive,
you atheistic, me metaphysical,
you prefer packaged food heated in a microwave,
I cook everything in or on a stove from scratch,
you watch sports whereas I like politics, science fiction and old movies,
I am a pack-rat and you like things pristinely organized,
I like to grow plants and improvise while I dig in the dirt
whereas you never like to do anything messy,
I like to delve into the meaning of things
and you think philosophy is about exploring
and refining the surface.

I am not so very modern it seems as you are and were.
I am a throw-back perhaps:
art, herbs, poetry, politics, astrology
as well as seeing after my aged mother and repairing the houses.
Whereas you are more streamlined: computer programming,
although you have talent with music and art
but fear to take these occupations seriously.

I have to decide if I can
allow myself to partner again
or just obey my impulse
to become an isolate Crone,
maybe loving someone now and then
without becoming too attached.
I know deep inside I can no longer let myself
become derailed by someone else’s agenda,
which unfortunately is all too easy,
whether they intend that or not,
since I am empathic despite my independent nature.

For now I tend the wood stove,
buy groceries for my mother and feed the cats,
swim and walk, happy about the progress
of our current renovations
on what was before just a bunch of falling apart houses
and strategize how to not obsess about some new man
or call you up to say hello, making more time instead
to get back into my art studio
while life both quickens and slows
as I feel myself reach towards the next stage of life.

ShonanDaira III

by Erik Kaye
watercolor
Note: click on picture to enlarge

"Re the series , ShonanDaira-- Shonan is the name for this seaside region on the backside of Sagami Bay which is essentially the outer chamber of Tokyo Bay. Daira is a word that usually means plane or plateau (the Chinese character also means 'flat') but I think here can be translated into 'butte.' Yah, that sounds right, Shonan Butte."
-----Erik Kaye

REALLY OPEN MIKE

by Greg Hall
copyright 2008

"WHO"
May
Speak
)?
"Those who make
Loneliness
A darling lover,
Solitude a darling
Sin"...
Bring yr dreams
Yr aspirations, yr crimes,
Yr open throats,
"KEEP SINGING"
as yr howls and "mozartian ululations"
Are not "FATAL" to me...
Seek not in me
The source of yr pregnancy,
"I" "LEAVE"
"NO"
"TRACKS"
But the
Loneliness problem
You mention
"Compels"
"Me"
To "advise"
"You"
"MAKE
LONELINESS
A LOVER
AND SOLITUDE
A DARLING
SIN"

It’s Hot!

by Bea Garth
copyright 2008

It’s hot. This morning it was still hot. Yesterday it was over 103 degrees here in the generally cool Los Gatos Hills not to speak of 101 degrees in San Jose.

I stopped at the cul-de-sac I manage in San Jose and Olivia told me this evening there is going to be a neighborhood street fair with a movie of Marilyn Monroe’s called “Some Like It Hot.” I may go there with a friend tonight if I am not still working on my ceramic sculpture and its not too unbearably hot.

I made sure I cooled off the studio last night. It was like an oven despite it being under trees and near a creek at the bottom of a hill. I opened a couple of windows and ran the fan all night and closed the windows this morning. And yes thankfully it had cooled down. I walked up the hill from the studio to the house and it seemed like it was at least 2:00 PM despite it being only 10:00 AM. I came up and closed the garage door and all the windows in my apartment and upstairs in my mother’s house. Fortunately I remembered to water the new garden last night before going out.

I plan to go for a swim pretty soon in our rustic pool. Just yesterday my 93 year old mother put in more pool shock. It was part of my campaign to get her to do something since otherwise she just sits even though she actually is very strong. We only had one bag left. I hope it was enough. The water was starting to turn green.

Heat. My brain fries. Yesterday I could hardly think. My head hurt and everything was miserable and blurry.

My eldest sister has a fever. I am letting her stay in my extra bedroom since she did not get along with our mother upstairs. I figured she needed a quiet place to heal with no stress and no trace glutens. She keeps drinking water like a parched fish. Her blood has an infection the doctors have as yet to determine what. She won’t take antibiotics until she knows. She is even more sensitive to drugs and foods than I am; this is my “marsy” sister that should have been an army sergeant. She has a heat rash over her whole body. She is so uncomfortable she wears no clothes. I bought bag balm to rub on her skin since she is allergic to everything else.

I remain considerate in spite of her hot, acerbic personality. Nevertheless I make a point of standing up for myself. This is my space after all. She is my guest and I make sure she behaves, like not bake her chicken in the middle of the day like she did yesterday ignoring the 103 degree weather!!

Nevertheless we somehow get along. Both of us want to not suffer needlessly. We have similar health concerns and have both transformed ourselves for the better overall despite the family trance that suggests its better to ignore our extreme celiac (i.e., no gluten) needs and other allergens and instead fit in with the conventional world. It helps to have an ally in her -- and she thanks me for cluing her in on what all was actually going on concerning the celiac since her doctors did not help. I just have to get her to see that paying attention to emotions is important too if you want to get along. As it is, both of her (now adult) children have become further estranged from her plus she has difficulty doing business with others without alienating them with her frequent caustic comments.

Today despite the continued heat I feel OK. I just learned tomorrow may cool off. The heat reminds me nevertheless that I liked living in the desert. Just takes three days usually to really make the adjustment. I was born in the desert after all up in Walla Walla, Washington near the Columbia River.

Nothing seems regular or normal weather-wise here in the San Francisco Bay Area. We are having the beginning of a drought. Everything is overly dry. The woods here are one big tinderbox. I worry about all those dead Oak trees adding to the fuel. We need to do some drastic trimming back before its too late. But it is hard since there are over twenty acres and much benign neglect. Last year Lexington reservoir was down to being just mud practically. This year it should be even worse since once again we had very little rain this past winter.

Already there have been several fires in the Santa Cruz area (over the low mountains half an hour away). Smokey skies are becoming a way of life. Thankfully I have my air purifier.

I drove by a fire just last week on my way in to San Jose from Los Gatos. The flames were at least ten feet high if not higher next to the freeway near the Camden exit on Highway 17. Fortunately it was along a green strip with the Los Gatos Creek stopping it from crossing over to the homes on the other side. The sky quickly became filled with soot and the fading sun was bright orange through the hazy gray air.

Extremes abound even though here it is not as bad as elsewhere. In the Midwest there are all those floods and storms. The fiasco called Katrina seems not to be just some fluke. Some say that all this extreme weather is part of “Global Warming.” I don’t doubt it. The world is out of balance. It is our job to rectify it in our own lives as well as influence public policy.

On further reading of the news I discover that McCain wants to put in roughly 46 new atomic reactors in the U.S.A. as a way to stop increased Global warming. It would be pretty funny if it weren’t so tragic. The irony of his wanting to attack Iran for doing one fiftieth of this sort of activity cannot escape the discerning eye. I notice Bush is trying to make an ally of Russia to further his position against Iran. I pray we don't have another meaningless war.

It makes me recall the infamous Green Run and how the US government experimented on the local population up in Eastern Washington by doing several releases or radioactive materials into the atmosphere from Hanford Nuclear Power Plant just to see what would happen to us back in the early 1950’s. This happened to me and my family since we were living in Walla Walla at the time. We didn’t move away to Bothell near Seattle until the end of the summer in 1952. I refuse to believe that nuclear reactors are safe and have no impact on our environment.

The sun itself of course is like a humongous reactor—one we get life from or become parched by or cooled off too much if our atmosphere becomes blocked from the sun’s rays -- like what happened in the old Ice Age. Recently they discovered why—it was due to a titanic volcanic eruption in Indonesia that was so large its ash caused the weather to drop globally by at least 10 degrees for several hundred years. Many species died. Nature at this scale continues to amaze me. We are so intertwined in balance (or out of balance) with everything else. It stands in fact as a warning.

Our bodies themselves are formed by so much water carried about in our bag-like skin stretched over the armature of our skeleton. Its no wonder it takes a lot to adjust to heat and that we are so sensitive to it. Or that heat (or the absence of it) is so much a part of our mythology. We need to make good use of its signs. If we pay attention, it can become a forge in which we can purify our souls as we learn how to heal the planet. Taking heed of the signs and taking action is a much better plan than doing nothing like the poor dinosaurs who were unable to adjust to changing conditions except for a few lizards and birds who were tiny enough to survive.

Meanwhile my sister’s fever has finally gone down. It has been nearly a week. Maybe she won’t need antibiotics after all! I hear her moaning in the bathroom from the shock of entering a cool bath. Its hot today, but somehow we will survive.

BANK SPECULATION AND OIL PRICES

News Analysis by Graeme Jones
copyright June 18, 2008

The people who own and control a thing determine the purpose of that thing. Given this, it can be truthfully said that the purpose of the American mass media is to protect the Capitalist establishment from the American people. One of the ways that it does this is by a very focused news management policy, that keeps activities at the apex of the capitalist power pyramid hidden behind a media smoke-screen. Ignorance and confusion is promoted in order to protect the predation that rules at the center of American power.

For this reason, few people will be aware that the current escalation in oil prices is being driven, to a significant extent, by financial speculation on the part of American banks. And that speculation is being done with taxpayer money. This is revealed to us by both Ralph Nader and Paul Craig Roberts. Roberts was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration and former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. Writing for the Counterpunch website in June 2008, Roberts asserts:

“In an effort to forestall a serious recession and further crises in derivative instruments, the Federal Reserve is pouring out liquidity that is financing speculation in oil futures contracts. Hedge funds and investment banks are restoring their impaired capital structures with profits made by speculating in highly leveraged oil future contracts, just as real estate speculators flipping contracts pushed up home prices......The crisis that looms for the US is the loss of its world currency role. Once the dollar loses that role, the US government will not be able to finance its operations by borrowing abroad, and foreigners will cease to finance the massive US trade deficit. This crisis will eliminate the US as a world power.”

The Federal Reserve is throwing taxpayer money at the large banks in order to protect them from self-induced bankruptcy. The Fed’s intention is that this money will be used by the banks to disburse credit to their business customers, thereby keeping the economy afloat. But the banks are using that money to build up their depleted capital base by speculating on the oil futures market.

If the people’s own money is being used to artificially drive up oil prices, it is clearly necessary that the media keep that fact safely obscured. Along with the fact that, while the United States Federal Reserve is spoken of by the media as an American Governmental institution, it is in fact nothing of the sort. It is really the private property of the banking cartel and sees its duty accordingly.

It needs to be added that such a massive, and ongoing, currency disbursement on the part of the Fed is putting significant downward pressure on the value of the dollar. At the same time speculative pressure on oil prices stokes the fires of inflation.

The deliciously ironic terminal logic here is that the sustainability of the entire capitalist system is being destroyed, in order to protect the very people who are in fact destroying that system.

Silver

by Bea Garth
copyright 2008

The clock is ticking
death approaches
I breathe in deeply
the universe bathes my heart
while a dog barks
from across the creek.
I do battle
persistent and slow
as a snail
eating the lettuce
and even the marigolds,
my trail a silver thread
reflecting the morning sun.

Evolving Line X

by Erik Kaye
copyright 2008
watercolor
>Note: click on picture to see an expanded version


This is part of Erik's new abstract series of watercolors:
"The Evolving Line X is a breakthrough
painting -- where I succeeding in creating the rhythmic non linear
space that I've been reaching for for many years."
-----Erik Kaye

Carob Banana Bars (gluten, sugar, milk, egg free)

by Bea Garth, copyright 2008

Try these delicious carob, banana bars. Again they seem sinfully rich but aren't since there is no sugar, chocolate, eggs or milk.

preheat oven to 350 degrees

½ cup butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons coconut milk (or other)
3 tablespoons applesauce
1 ½ cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium)

2 cups GF flour mix
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon stevia powder
½ teaspoon potato flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 cup carob powder

Optional -- Add:
1 cup sunflower seeds (or chopped nuts)

In a mixing bowl, cream butter. Add vanilla extract, coconut milk and applesauce ; beat until thoroughly combined. Blend in mashed bananas.
Combine the gluten free flour mix, potato flour, xanthan gum, carob, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add flour mixture to creamed and mix well.
Optional: Add sunflower seeds or chopped nuts.
Spread into a greased 13 x 9-inch baking pan.
Bake at 350F for 25 minutes or until the bars test done.
Yields about 2 ½ to 3 dozen bars.

Herman

by Bea Garth
copyright 2008
work still in progress

Note: click on picture to see an expanded version

This piece is inspired by my great grandfather Herman Sund.

ON WHAT IS REQUIRED

by Bea Garth
copyright 2008

I wintered far too long
thick roots strangled my every movement
as I dreamed of Spring
despite what seemed all odds
willing myself to un-twine
the hidden spells that bound me.

Miraculously, I woke up
knowing what finally to do:
what majicks to enact, what potions to drink,
what edibles to eat, what things to avoid.

Slowly I revive
as I finally begin to turn the soil
and spread the rich compost
that sat forgotten
through that dark forbidding Winter.

Now I hear the Earth Sprites laugh
waiting for the new starts:
tomato, yellow-squash, cucumber,
rosemary, thyme, sage and rue,
brilliant red marigold
and their cousins -- golden calendula.

And, despite the lateness of Spring,
the earliness of Summer
grabs me by my hands
during this pregnant New Moon,
showing me Winter truly has passed
and will not come again for some Time yet
but action Now is of the Essence.

SUNSET BAY STATE PARK (first part)

by Steve Arntson
copyright 2008

See it there!
A sunset just a darkening
A black-and-white affair
more suitable for Bad Guys and lonesome times

It is said the rocks were blasted once
At the entrance dynamite you didn't stick around!

Before you think you have to die
the stock market crashed
It's 1933
And the sun has simply turned to stone with the times
An amorphous gray

It's still a market
Still a sunset
And what we're hearing like banshee landlords
the cries of the avifauna
their absolute agenda

The Bay is like a sudden crater
where the truth about money is a costly surprise
the color of steel
The new color of the sinking star

New gray
As if gray were Noel and anomaly
what painters' eyes have never seen
and therefore attempted
with their pallet's bright ouija

Designation: poverty
The ranger pronounces government green
that seems another version of "All is lost!"
Chances are you own a uniform yourself
And keep it tailored to a vanishing life-form

"Money market" is alliteration only
A tease in the mind
A cork afloat in the cranial sea
where no horizon's ever discerned
dimeless
Something unthought-of before
Upwind or down

We're just about turned into animals again
No one's to blame how does it feel?

Half-light and half-dark
It's a sunset devoured by a battleship's paint job
A gray that's waiting
on the sirens of Roman numeral wars
I II and counting impatiently

Let the ranger speak!
Can purple be a color? and red? out there?
right now?

Blown apart!
westmost smithereens
an underwater temple deconstructed

Can the Bay be the sky be the paint-by-numbers showoff?
What sealife does and all the time

The ranger's talking science to no one in particular
Talking to retire she incubates a bias towards the west
The last lines of sight beginning to curve
and be a reservoir of sable shallow numerology