Wednesday, July 30, 2008

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

Sunday, July 27, 2008

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

Friday, July 25, 2008

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.


Wednesday, July 23, 2008

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

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

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

Friday, July 18, 2008

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"


Thursday, July 17, 2008

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.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The Itch

by Bea Garth
copyright 1982, 2008
pen and ink drawing
This 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

Monday, July 14, 2008

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.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Tracy 2

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

Friday, July 11, 2008

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


Thursday, July 10, 2008

Hawaiian Girl

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

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

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.

Monday, July 7, 2008

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

Friday, July 4, 2008

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

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Flamenco Dancers

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