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When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But l want a big funeral
St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in
        Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother
        96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor Joel, cousin Mindy, brother Gene one eyed one ear'd, sister-
        in-law blonde Connie, five nephews, stepbrothers & sisters
        their grandchildren,
companion Peter Orlovsky, caretakers Rosenthal & Hale, Bill Morgan--
Next, teacher Trungpa Vajracharya's ghost mind, Gelek Rinpoche,
        there Sakyong Mipham, Dalai Lama alert, chance visiting
        America, Satchitananda Swami
Shivananda, Dehorahava Baba, Karmapa XVI, Dudjom Rinpoche,
        Katagiri & Suzuki Roshi's phantoms
Baker, Whalen, Daido Loorie, Qwong, Frail White-haired Kapleau
        Roshis, Lama Tarchen --
Then, most important, lovers over half-century
Dozens, a hundred, more, older fellows bald & rich
young boys met naked recently in bed, crowds surprised to see each
        other, innumerable, intimate, exchanging memories
"He taught me to meditate, now I'm an old veteran of the thousand
        day retreat --"
"I played music on subway platforms, I'm straight but loved him he
        loved me"
"I felt more love from him at 19 than ever from anyone"
"We'd lie under covers gossip, read my poetry, hug & kiss belly to belly
        arms round each other"
"I'd always get into his bed with underwear on & by morning my
        skivvies would be on the floor"
"Japanese, always wanted take it up my *** with a master"
"We'd talk all night about Kerouac & Cassady sit Buddhalike then
        sleep in his captain's bed."
"He seemed to need so much affection, a shame not to make him happy"
"I was lonely never in bed **** with anyone before, he was so gentle my
        stomach
shuddered when he traced his finger along my abdomen ****** to hips-- "
"All I did was lay back eyes closed, he'd bring me to come with mouth
        & fingers along my waist"
"He gave great head"
So there be gossip from loves of 1948, ghost of Neal Cassady commin-
        gling with flesh and youthful blood of 1997
and surprise -- "You too? But I thought you were straight!"
"I am but Ginsberg an exception, for some reason he pleased me."
"I forgot whether I was straight gay queer or funny, was myself, tender
        and affectionate to be kissed on the top of my head,
my forehead throat heart & solar plexus, mid-belly. on my *****,
        tickled with his tongue my behind"
"I loved the way he'd recite 'But at my back allways hear/ time's winged
        chariot hurrying near,' heads together, eye to eye, on a
        pillow --"
Among lovers one handsome youth straggling the rear
"I studied his poetry class, 17 year-old kid, ran some errands to his
        walk-up flat,
seduced me didn't want to, made me come, went home, never saw him
        again never wanted to... "
"He couldn't get it up but loved me," "A clean old man." "He made
        sure I came first"
This the crowd most surprised proud at ceremonial place of honor--
Then poets & musicians -- college boys' grunge bands -- age-old rock
        star Beatles, faithful guitar accompanists, gay classical con-
        ductors, unknown high Jazz music composers, funky trum-
        peters, bowed bass & french horn black geniuses, folksinger
        fiddlers with dobro tamborine harmonica mandolin auto-
        harp pennywhistles & kazoos
Next, artist Italian romantic realists schooled in mystic 60's India,
        Late fauve Tuscan painter-poets, Classic draftsman *****-
        chusets surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty
        sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American
        provinces
Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicate biblio-
        philes, *** liberation troops nay armies, ladies of either ***
"I met him dozens of times he never remembered my name I loved
        him anyway, true artist"
"Nervous breakdown after menopause, his poetry humor saved me
        from suicide hospitals"
"Charmant, genius with modest manners, washed sink, dishes my
        studio guest a week in Budapest"
Thousands of readers, "Howl changed my life in Libertyville Illinois"
"I saw him read Montclair State Teachers College decided be a poet-- "
"He turned me on, I started with garage rock sang my songs in Kansas
        City"
"Kaddish made me weep for myself & father alive in Nevada City"
"Father Death comforted me when my sister died Boston l982"
"I read what he said in a newsmagazine, blew my mind, realized
        others like me out there"
Deaf & Dumb bards with hand signing quick brilliant gestures
Then Journalists, editors's secretaries, agents, portraitists & photo-
        graphy aficionados, rock critics, cultured laborors, cultural
        historians come to witness the historic funeral
Super-fans, poetasters, aging Beatnicks & Deadheads, autograph-
        hunters, distinguished paparazzi, intelligent gawkers
Everyone knew they were part of 'History" except the deceased
who never knew exactly what was happening even when I was alive

                                                February 22, 1997
Daniel Magner Aug 2013
The gesso splashed
on my flowing arms
and flew through the air.
Not noticing I ran
my paintbrush fingers
through my hair.
The chemical smell hung
in the room
not looming but welcoming
helping to soften
this mind of stone
right smack in the studio,
it's been five years
since I've felt this way
like I'm finally
home.
Daniel Magner 2013
Lysander Gray Aug 2013
Tonight's grey cloud hangs over the pearlescent blue and pink of today.
The gray is an avalanche
criss-crossed  
with black
powerlines
that spread like cracks in a mirror.

The rain starts to fall.

To my right is a young blonde
age (17?) unknown.
        Her bag and telephone
would
match
        but for a shade.

The rain starts to fall.

Young lovers kiss in the calm embrace of one another
beneath an awning the colour of
old ladies - no
boredom - no
subjugation -no.
        the under side of an old mattress.

The rain starts to fall.

Across the gap stands an Asian man with the complete accoutrements of a golfer.
Obfuscated now by a train
with the palette of a McDonald's ad.

The rain starts to fall.

The streets are become slick
and every lamp bleeds the start
of an oil painting
with brushes made of light.

The air is cool.

There is a canal that stretches between seats, walled by rows of heads.
In the distance a little girl peaks her head up in the middle of all this,
she wears a bright pink plastic bow on her head that blinks and glows.

Traffic lights streak
green and red
over black gesso.

Cars streak
silver and blood
down black gesso.

"I simply don't need to cheapen things further"

Matching work uniforms.
Matching looks of boredom
Matching shoes and glances
Matching telephones
Matching lack of conversation
Matching hair
Matching matching carpet and drapes
Matching posture

why is everything matching?
       (they got off at the same station)

Suburban princess holds the phone like a bible.

I attempt to sketch her arm in my head....but I am too ******.

I am hungry.
The outside air is cool.

This is a carriage for the antisocial
3 rooms of solitude.
Everyone is plugged in
No-one dares to speak.

The Art of Conversation.

An old woman sits in front of me, with the face of Ray Winstone in drag.
Her hair is a dandelion
and her eyebrows are birds
painted in the distance.
Hands wrinkled and knotty
like old fruit.

Trains are predictable
the purest form of modern transport
all the little fishies
in the giant metal can
are silent to one another.

The train conductors voice is boredom.

I mistake ambient noise for music.
Look, look, master, here comes two religious caterpillars.
                                                The Jew of Malta.

Polyphiloprogenitive
The sapient sutlers of the Lord
Drift across the window-panes.
In the beginning was the Word.

In the beginning was the Word.
Superfetation of ,
And at the mensual turn of time
Produced enervate Origen.

A painter of the Umbrian school
Designed upon a gesso ground
The nimbus of the Baptized God.
The wilderness is cracked and browned

But through the water pale and thin
Still shine the unoffending feet
And there above the painter set
The Father and the Paraclete.
    .    .    .    .    .
The sable presbyters approach
The avenue of penitence;
The young are red and pustular
Clutching piaculative pence.

Under the penitential gates
Sustained by staring Seraphim
Where the souls of the devout
Burn invisible and dim.

Along the garden-wall the bees
With hairy bellies pass between
The staminate and pistilate,
Blest office of the epicene.

Sweeney shifts from ham to ham
Stirring the water in his bath.
The masters of the subtle schools
Are controversial, polymath.
Martin Narrod Apr 2014
The minutia of cotton fledglings, I play them over and over
In my head, the most enjoyable, a layer of dynasty added to
The mallard kingdom. And a rocking horse swims across
Each pond too, its head heaves and nags creating massive, huge,
Undulating circles around circles. One more coat of gesso and then
Even I, in my speckled red paint Commune jeans, and holy holy Protestant tee shirt, I can travel the world; maybe even brush up on my
Cuyp.

Whipping through the sedge-brook grass, busting out, shooting Through the other mucilaginous nimbuses rolling
Outward first, then fled upward into the beacons of the heavens-
Shouting, whistling, oozing albicant heraldic pillars and shields.

Twenty more colours to mix.
Together, the mallards and ewes and rocking horse, and I;
prancing, little dots, filing into order. Where nursing
Against the sunken pillows of grain, I enter each round of
This papyrus jungle. Neatly folding my hands around each
Milky white shade, rushing out  into the aurulent sunglow. .
*Aelbert Cuyp: 17th Century Dutch Impressionist Painter
albicant: white; becoming white
aurulent: gold
Emily K Fisk Jan 2017
Read more.
Words are the map fragments of wisdom you need to navigate your way in a world constantly sending you searching for that which you don’t yet have a name.

Write more.
And don’t keep it to yourself.  Your voice deserves to be heard too so scream in cursive and whisper in all CAPS, bleed through paper and heal through the spines of notebooks
you’re spiraling onto something, breathe in commas and step over periods because you’re not over
you’re the most beautiful run-on sentence

paint more.
You’re an artist whose perspective warrants an audience,
so leave cerulean fingerprint traces in your titanium touches,
mix gesso with mars and be alizarin against charcoal

stand out. And stand up.

Find adventure in the every day.  Skydive through small talk, zip line through steps up stairs without an end,
life is the ellipses in silences your eyes seek to make stories,

explore.
This world. People. This city you’ve landed yourself and take calculated risks.

Tiptoe through moshpits and stomp through meadows.
Cartwheel into concrete conversations headfirst eyes wide open,

be vulnerable, to those who deserve to see the rawest parts of you.
And leave the ones who’d rather exploit them behind

leave others’ opinions behind.  Let them be the ones collecting dust.
You are stronger than you’ll ever know and ten-fold what they’d ever expect.

So let them guess.
Be the question mark in the corner they can’t place.

Your story is complicated.  But that makes you interesting.
What doesn’t challenge you doesn’t change you and you’ve been challenged each and every day

you get out of bed and speak when so easily you could’ve lost your voice the night you lost your body.
It took you some time and a few nameless faces to claim it again and you’re still working out what that means,
you’ve always had your own way
but all the ****** assault pamphlets name this normal.

[For once it’s a label you don’t detest.]

So this year be normal if you so choose, but also be weird.
Be loud, not small, be confident, and not sorry.
Take up space.
You deserve to.

You are Woman and you are Strong.

Push, but don’t ever shove.
Love unapologetically and fiercely.
But don’t force what a boy is not willing to give.

Find someone who will pay your heart the same attention he does your body.
Scratch that,
find yourself.

Read your body’s brail, your chapters of goosebumps, and play chess with checkers across your skin.
Unlearn and relearn and unlearn and learn to remember you are enough and it is your turn.

Look in the mirror and accept the pieces looking back are in progress.

Keep writing.

Watch the moon make way for the sun. Be brighter than both.
Let your irises draw constellations across galaxies unwritten.
Move so far forward, you stop having a reason to look back.

Forgive that which you cannot change.
You’ll make more mistakes, scrape more knees and trip on chainlink chokers, your jewelry limbs you haven’t yet untangled.
But forgive yourself.

Kiss the boy. Kiss the girl. Kiss no one.
Live in the present tense and with future declaratives.
Appreciate the thousands of little moments still looking to be made yours. Make them yours.

You are worth all the struggle.  Don’t forget.

Be kind but don’t rewind.  
Stay authentic even when you don’t make sense and your words aren’t oil enough to separate

paddle through the waves eyes closed if you have to,
the salt may burn your scars and you may lose your bearings, but keep going.
Maybe this is the year you’re going to learn to swim.
in progress because aren't we all unfinished
James Jarrett Mar 2014
You should see my empty room with the stars
Made with more love than I could bear
Starry night in the corner of gypsum and gesso
Looking over Van Gogh's countryside
Stars crawling across the ceiling
A universe of sleep
In glowing repose
But the room is empty
Filled only now with sadness
The bed cold and alone
There are no eyes to see the beautiful things
That dance in circles
Across the ceiling sky
There are no dreams to be had here any more
They have all faded
Like the stars
Their glow in the dark gone
I think someday
That it will be time
To re-paint
Someday
brooke Aug 2014
I will take the caps off all the markers in the house just to see you mad.


but I also want to brush the
oils out of your hair and take
take pictures of your forearms
in the early morning light when
your veins look like streaks of
minerals in granite, I cannot
promise I won't watch your
shadow behind the shower
curtain, or roll the windows
up and down in your car
is this what he sees
is this what he sees?
I'll ask myself,
I can't promise
I won't put your
shoes on to walk
around the house
all over your clean
carpets and change
your spice cabinet
so that you can't
ever find the oregano
but what's worse is
i'll never let you
cook in peace,
is this what
you do?
I'll ask.
is this
what
you
do?
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
tangshunzi Jun 2014
<p><p> Questo matrimonio è follemente bello .Ma non è sorprendente.considerando che è un oro .rosa e rosso infuso bellezza culturale realizzato da una squadra di talento seriamente di venditori Texas .Pensa Posey floreali e progettazione di eventi .Caroline + Ben Fotografia e 36th Street Events .tutti insieme per creare una giornata che mette in evidenza il vero amore e uno dei duo più simpatico che abbia mai incontrato .Vedi tutto qui nella piena galleria .<p><p> E un film dolce da photohouse Films .impressionante .Si prega di aggiornare il tuo <p> browserColorsSeasonsSpringSettingsBallroomResortStylesCultural Beauty Dalla Sposa .Ci siamo incontrati a Tokyo nel 2005. Eravamo entrambi insegnamento della lingua inglese .Eravamo buoni amici in un primo momento .ma entrambi sapevamo che c'era qualcosa di più ad esso e nel 2006 siamo diventati una coppia .<p> nostro tema iniziato come "leggero" .ma penso che come è progredito quando abbiamo trovato la nostra citazione ( "Siamo andati a trovare noi stessi e abbiamo trovato l'altro" ).e che è diventato il tema .come era nei nostri inviti.il nostro segnoe il nostro video.<p> Abbiamo fatto i segni della barra ( " Sei Reddy per una notte Phull di divertimento?" ) .i segni tavolo escort e carte di escort che si basavano sulla skyline delle nostre rispettive città di provenienza (Londra .Chicago ) e la città cheincontrato a ( Tokyo) .<p> nostro planner Beth fece il segno principale tendone che è stato il fulcro per la <b>abiti da sposa corti</b>  camera .Conteneva la nostra citazione - "Siamo andati a trovare noi stessi e abbiamo trovato l'un l'altro . "<p> Abbiamo comprato qualche nuvoletta bianca e pannelli di gesso da Etsy  <a href="http://www.belloabito.com/abiti-da-sposa-corti-c-49"><b>abiti da sposa corti</b></a>  così le persone possono scrivere i loro consigli coniugale e scattare foto di se stessi .<p> Abbiamo anche chiesto un amico a mettere insieme un video di immagini di noi che crescono con i nostri amici e le famiglie e poi noi insieme con i reciproci amici e famiglie che abbiamo giocato prima del nostro ingresso alla sala di ricevimento .<p> Abbiamo trovato avere un wedding planner è stata la chiave .Soprattutto visto come fosse un matrimonio posizione.Inoltre .abbiamo usato il sito wedsimple.com per mantenere i nostri clienti informati attraverso il nostro sito .per fare le nostre RSVP e tenere sotto controllo che stava arrivando .Il mio momento preferito della giornata è stata capolino attraverso le porte appena prima del nostro ingresso nella hall della reception .a guardare tutti i nostri ospiti ridere ( e piangere ) al nostro video. <p> Mia più grande pezzo di consulenza per le spose e sposi pianificare il loro matrimonio oggi: non ti accontentare tutti .Non  <p><a href="http://www.belloabito.com/goods.php?id=575" target="blank"><img width="240" height="320" src="http://188.138.88.219/imagesld/td//t35/productthumb/1/1957335353535394817.jpg"></a></p>  cercare di .<p> Fotografo: Caroline + Ben Fotografia | dell'artista: photohouse Film | Wedding Planner : 36th Street  <a href="http://www.belloabito.com/abiti-da-sposa-c-1"><b>vestiti da sposa</b></a>  Eventi | Fiorista : Posey floreale e Design Event | Dress : Ritu Kumar | Scarpe : Nine West | Catering : Barton Creek Resort \u0026 Spa | Illuminazione:Illios Illuminazione | vestito dello sposo : Jaeger | Cerimonia di Set - up : Prashe | Hair \u0026 Make-up : Pearl Hair \u0026 Make-up Studio | lino.Chairs \u0026 Piatti : Marquee affitti | Luogo : Barton Creek Resort \u0026 SpaMarquee Event Group .36th Street Eventi e Posey floreale e progettazione di eventi fanno parte del nostro Little Black Book .Scopri come i membri sono scelti visitando la nostra pagina delle FAQ .Marquee Group Event vedi portfolio 36th Street Eventi vedi portfolio Posey floreale e Event Design VIEW</p>
Colorful Matrimonio indiano_abiti da sposa on line
Sherlock Dec 2010
Dash your art upon this stony logic and let bleed the colors. Gesso and treat the crevasses in this cliff mind and tighten your perspective.

Do not be afraid, these lines bend with your smile. Take it upon yourself to see what can’t be and make it so.

With bristled courage strike out against this ashen terrain and find your way home again. But stray not too long in the kettle warmth and poppy seeds, for even your willow locks long the sea again.

You throw salt in the eyes of those that seek you if only to season their sight. Hex and jinx in clandestine circles but do not forget that by a friends hand you learned these flairs.

Take to your faerie kind and seek the forest in yourself. Within the trees you are free.
Francie Lynch Sep 2014
Who am I?
I'm a piece of work.
A block of marble,
A chip of rock.
A driftwood face,
Waiting near a dock.
A song without refrain,
You won't sing again.
A pattern, pinned for sewing,
A garment good for stowing.
A man in queue,
Looking back at you.
A canvas smeared in gesso,
Leaning near a frame.
A sonnet missing
A rhyming couplet,
An octave and a sestet.
I am
A work in progress
For Joe's request.
wordvango Oct 2014
Painters hands always so messy oiled up
reek of turpentine smoke moonshine
Alizarin crimson streaks lamp black roots
their faces gesso'd to unreality they fan
brushes broken
canvases filled to their brim
much as poets
who reek of  one day's and starlights
mountain peaks they haven't seen
Martini's black in white spaces, coats waiting to attack,
tie up.
With dried up pens, filled notebook paper.
Nigel Morgan Oct 2015
Agnes in London*


1

unprepared for this
the tall door opens
and there are the paintings
72in x 72in and full of nothing
the most delicate stripes of colour
‘midst an intricacy of making
nothing else but beauty
and the mystery of life

2

Here’s what’s left of her beginnings
after the landscapes the portraits
the biomorphic forms : abstraction
so very green with loneliness
and the wish to be the solitary self

3

She wanted to be like Picasso
a painter who worked hard
this room is full of that hard work
experimental embroidered forms
beginnings symptomatic of ‘the grid’
set amongst sculptured objects found
roughly brought together
urban : hard-edged

4

Just three compositions
the beaten gold leaf of *Islands

the Chinese go board of Friendship
the nothingness of Grey Stone
you saw the meticulously pencilled
hardly visible lines – hiding

5

More of the same but
noticing the rectangle
set inside the square
the all-important border
and the pin-pricked holes
for a guiding thread?

6

On a clear day
rise and look around you
how it will astound you
that glow of your being
outshining every star

. . . the Streisand song
a clue to expressing
an innocence of mind
or thirty variations
on a simple grid

7

The colour of the rock
at dawn at noon at sunset
Agnes in the desert
a soft brush on acrylic gesso
dividing colour fields
with the graphite pencil
masking tape and metal ruler
subtle irregularities
a liquid pooling of paint
when viewed close to

8

The greyness you loved
and sat transfixed
to view the textures
I could barely grasp
they were floating therein
a reduction of means

9

neither objects nor space
nor time nor anything
there in this silence
of the whispering kind
at the still centre
you told me you saw
a blueness in all this white
these twelve canvases
of acrylic paint
and graphite line

10  

Here her final work
a drawing on paper
rich in the tremor of inconsistency
conveying (the catalogue said)
a sense of optical vibration
art as a realm
of transcendent experience
like nature itself

11

her final canvases
a return to an earlier time
uncomfortably so for me
No longer work
at rest with itself
it reaches out
towards inevitability
and the futility of death
when the painting has to stop
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jun/07/agnes-martin-retrospective-review-tate-modern
x Dec 2018
she was art 
she was the part 
that no one could account for
greatness in her contour 
creativity seeping from out of her pores 
dripping onto floors 
like wet paint 
she ain’t 
ordinary 
every bit of her 
extraordinary 
and she wore it very coronary
as if it were a crown 
and if you were to look down 
on her head 
what she said 
was more than remarkable
the fire she kept 
inside her re spark-able
like a fuse 
she is everyone’s muse 
truly an inspiration 
a beautiful creation 
freckles aligned on her face
like constellations
refusing to be complacent
adjacent from
a galaxy that glistens
driven by ambition 
as she paints herself with liquin
colors vibrated against her skin 
you can hear them closely,
if you listen
you could hear them as she spoke
her breath strokes like brush strokes 
ever so soft and subtle 
her palette slightly muddled 
as oranges and blues cuddle
leaving dull minds fuddled 
nothing can suddle such a divine mechanism
but her scheme vibrant with rhythm 
seeing the world in her vision 
through her own prism
consuming herself in the bristles 
she is blissful
every curl in her hair wistful
as every lock wrapped around
one another twistful
she was sublime
as she saw herself as redefined
soaking herself in turpentine
painting a new path
like a phoenix, she arose
from the ash
bouncing back
like stretched canvas
she grabbed in a hand, with
gesso in the other
making her slate blank
to enjoy different palettes
and different paints
an artist 
unable to part with 
success
Lawrence Hall Mar 2019
A line cook at Denny’s (must have own pans)
Is an artist, accomplished in assemblage
Compositions of eggs (rather like Cezanne’s)
Toast, bacon, waffles for his decoupage

His gesso is the window layered in steam
Built of reflections and condensation
Hinting at the flowing Interstate stream
Beyond the No Smoking pumping station

The line cook has indeed his pans and plans -
Art, as the muse of cookery commands
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
alexis hill Feb 2014
my mind a canvas-
and what better surface
to create upon
mold and shape upon

there is no wrong medium
I'll use acrylic and oil
I'll use basics
like crayon and marker

or something sharper
like sharpie so it's permanence
won't leave the landscape
of my brain

I'll use gesso and white out
to layer upon each layer
later I'll peel them off
one by one to see the
initial outcome

and if I don't like it-
I'll change it
because I'm an artist
and as my mind as the canvas,
I think, what better surface to work with.
wordvango Oct 2017
you know how after gesso-ing the canvas
you sit back,
take the largest brush you have
add some titanium white with the darkest blue
you can find
and attack that woven weave wanting to
make almost love to it
temper it with color
not knowing what result you are after
I do.
Then you see light spots shadows clouds
trees and fields ponds appear
a few geese white flying
just with a slight addition here and there
trees seem to believe they are real
shadows grow all from one tangent knowing
how that is real
when what you want
need to paint is more surreal.
And the perspective all the sudden changes
into third worlds
reality
I do.
I do know the almost uncontrollable urges of creativity.
I know the best selling colors.
I just faint to use them.
I get all wild.
Skipping Stones Jun 2016
pigments of life
load yourself
upon this brush
so it can run
meticulous strokes
upon endless miles
of gesso duck
observing students in edgar ru's class
wordvango Jul 2017
If I were  painted a long time ago
in say Renaissance times, two dimensions,
I might be a saint-
or a revolutionary-
I was stroked
of harsh defiant bold colors
when portraits were cast in canvas
bronze overtones of gesso and black only
washes of contrast
the tone built up
with layers of translucence
and bone colored washes
and hung on a wall and try though I might
the egg tempera
earth tones deeper than
olive oil on a live model
wore off
and  the canvas warped
the wood grew skewed
and the museum had me
cremated
along side
a dog and scattered in the
woods
just as I had hoped
brooke Oct 2013
I painted three
layers of gesso
over your sister
and drew me
how I want
to see
me
(c) Brooke Otto 2013

true story.
http://imgur.com/tEmogoC
Slab Of Flab Protrudes From Ab
twas an incremental subtle expansion of waist
most likely aside effects of one
or all prescription medication
to stave off severe melancholy,

social anxiety, panic attack, et cetera
whereby most everything thy tongue did taste
immediately delivered a randy paunch
to former washboard
smooth as a fresh application of gesso like paste
readying canvass
for partially naked self-portrait masterpiece
depicting naked body laced

with flat as a washboard physique
unlike present dis graced
whereat when sending a photograph
of shirtless self-try with futility
utilizing photoshop to get erased
displeasing equatorial zone of anatomy
saddled with unwanted
fatty tissue that defaced

proportionate rock hard stomach
with a slender man
about five foot and ten-inch build
evincing an aura of being chaste

gone forever analogous to temptation
gobbling house constructed
of cake and confectionery
that nearly did likewise to Hansel and Gretel
readying their not quite plump enough bodies

tubby slathered with baste
yet just in the nick of time
the two abandoned children aced
the sinister plot outwitting
cannibalistic cackling croaking old woman
inducing to break out into song singing

Sarasponda, sarasponda, sarasponda rat tat tat
Sarasponda, sarasponda, sarasponda rat tat tat
A doray-oh, A doray-boomday-oh
A doray-boomday ret set set
Ah say pah say oh.
Ken Pepiton Oct 22
In the stacks of all we knew, LOOKY HERE,
in 72 minutes we walk a parsec, and Earth turns
two degrees, and Annie Jacobsen's whole
do no more, is all our denoument.

- pardon our verbosity, we had free time -

What news good came lately my way,
I long to think I did expect, my way
was new made, after the majority attained
use of Google translate thinker augments,
weform a contextual we, excluding
orders of social harmony
allowing liar laws life,
justice and way
eminence
eumenine specificity, so many specified known
wasps classified royally cosmopolitan,
mental peace presensing sub-untilificious

royal rules, only queens reproduce,
only idle bees are never seen busy,
and some can see syms when societies
all stop to think, for a minute,
and just breath, in, then out
we form awesome thinks expansive,
to mostly
support generally useless bums, like me.

{estimated reading time queries are invalid}

This is why, don't ask why again, or else,
imagine that…

The idle mind is where repairs are made.
Pairs connect, mate in mind and hold
thoughts as long as you imagined…

With this tool,
were I one willing, and able,
to master its functionality, imagined

ever learning along with reality
expanding the need to know,

all the things possible in this window,
between my time and thine, whole
worlds away in words never writ
with ink or wedge in stone nor clay
wished for siderealities, as many as
all the stars within augmented plain
sight, as through any stained pane,
presenting dancing pixels just there,
edgewise,
in our per ifery margin, where beauty
squirms eusocially,
all lights holding mean-peak
at an instant's attention
max red or green or blue, fading to black.

Pain, in jokes and drama, pain
is the essential underlay, the gesso
McLuhan saysotoo
over which we pigmentate, media
mental in original intention, obedient,

under law older than Shadrach,
the law of the Medes and Persians,
the power of attorney given priests
of the authors of our orders, classified,
as it is writ, thus it must be… sacred
ready readers, only.
Reading makes inclusion work as wisdom,
instant completely functioning beautifully,
breathe-ing
as if, asked
and answered, at the moment, called
Wisdom, come, entreat with all warring in me,
Wisdom, come, gentle minds twisted by me,
Wisdom, come, make us make believe.
-------------

Eerie, eh, not holding any thought, being
thought spiritual enough to find any word

so idled as to be posh fluff or street crud,
slung to signal inclusion in the with side,
the meaning in life is the message
in this medium prepositioned
opposed
to the without side, those at emnity
with truth's way

Into the comfort zone,

danger free, follow your toes, theories
of everything, meditatively perpendicular,

norms, and circles, churning burning effort,
ef-ing walls extend effects solid ificate
to hold the ash and tailings,

mined precepts seeding crystals
in caverns,
never witnessed, now known, so true,

two dichotomies make one tetrad,
and whatsoever we agree
to make believe

we may, and think it not robbery
to play,

make functional fun, little impulse to smile,
and think I know this idea, functions in me,
wink
and now, you, unless we lost you at the
NAND gate, excluding unbelievers, then a
NAND gate excluding unbelievers in live words,
NAND gate excluding no second guessing, here

we are, all in one window, thinking
we are our kind,  tied
at our common sense ability,

to stretch a point,
to make a thread one pastless point thin,
to tie a premis, a premission, permitting ponderous
whying
heavy duty gullibility
in terms
of mortal sensibilities,
this'll kihl you. I realized. Accidental as the idea silent
aitches let us talk end existence kihling bad ideas

to use pain
to teach, 'ow, why how is always
thorny issues, way back, seemed common,
we learn how fire works
by being made aware,
- not by being burned, a touch is enough
- skin as sensitive as a frog in parable lies, leaps
as touch response reflex functions all start running
what ifs against wonder ifs, wishes versus prayers,
-no, frogs won't simmer to death, they leap
using frog sense,
worth of knowing how long
to wait in winter, learning
worth of knowing bears know something
of weather. Co-mental commenting we think.
Thought hard fruit, thinkalongtime fruit, ra' good

Singing salmon songs I never learned, thinking bear
market strategies make less sense than bullshat
macroeconomic dimensions extractable
from meta data,
under all we ever stood up from under,
in the bubble of all I bet I knew for sure,

boldly accumulating in arterial informal plaques,
and films in limenal tunnels holding quarks as ones,

two bit chirality problem,
solved, cut it six ways,
two heads, two mouths, in one, out the other,
inside outside all at once, so easy, we imagined,
image that, two eyes, two ears, two nasal passages
into synodical pressure sensitive chambers
sinus sorting
of pheremone signal
to act analagous senders
to whale domes, catchers,
signal
from noise, gnosisnot say so,
sniff, feel cold nose, think so,
swallow all pride, and pretend, we made up this mind,
and it uses words we can understand
in all the unbarbing thorny issues
of zoological superfluity, among

watchers and waiters serving as idle ants,
with angst relief primary function,
just take air for granted, free
grace in time of need,
sleep if you are tired, easy,
weary way we know we go, has
cost. Pain exists, you know, you can imagine
in art, in jokes, and most certainly dramatic series
that carry followers
through decades exposed
to commercials announcing urgent solutions,
- now, no commercials, we bingegulp seasons,
- sometimes at a sitting, depends on dope
skating on easy learning absorption skills,
ever learning the drama never ends,

ask your doctor, now,
back to the global equivalent of one
Paredo Distribution, eighty percent of TV
is daily faire for twenty percent of people,
eighty percent of readers reading this far,
get to this bubbles popping edge, on a side

zoom to a scatter graph, who breathes in
who breathes out,
all around the world
whiling away, in trust we make peace seem.
.. seen as through smoked glasses, liquidly
Gaussian blurring edges
where the frame
holds the light we see through
to think like this

is real
at word level. Live rethinking, first men
tale-ings
after refining whying wishes
to know.
More, or less.

Everything, all at once, is chaos, whence
art abstracts beauty patiently, trusting wishes
what if its another trick we have no defences,
we get eaten alive,
for cultural misappropriation.

Dear is a value to be weighed using full bandwidth
Sakal, show thy self letters ready for measure,
mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, indeed
שָׂכַל defined several of seventy ways,
spelled to take a broken heart
and mend it with a realization.

If my need became your need,
we would be in love,
that would really
defeat the use
of preparation, peeling potatoes,
prudence, ever ready to entertain,
pounding clothes down by the riverside,
watchin' babies being washed off and blessed,
שָׂכַל knowing waiting is suffering, not pain
watchin' life like National Geographic, before TV.
A messenger's whistle, hear
ah
Message to the mass essences
of little looks mira-clues, seen miracles
since who knew when today
would continue as today. As if once more.
Dear Prudence,
did we come out to play, as if today,
was one of those times that we all seem
to have, recollected
if it could seem alright.
שָׂכַל prophets spake, Ai make secrets known,
the whys for all the wars so far. Pride, indeed.

Why? Would that defeat the use,
and not the purpose
of preparation, final product,
Battlefield Earth, truths uses versus lies uses,
us as we
who think it all through
to the seed
in the fruit it self desirable
to make one wise considering
שָׂכַל science falsely so called, still makes believers.
Slow down.
Jello time reminds second glancers,
when time is not as dear, as an instance
in re co gnosis, swallows gnosis known nots,
- wise was the serpent discerning decision trees.
what would ever make us all think one thought once,
then never think it alone again, we all ways, big all
think this was the way, we walked in,
the same way we walked out, all
set to comprehend wisdom and knowledge and
yada da da da we who work
   in living once idle words,
our side ways won, when we did not fight,
we never lasted al-mental
this long before, but
when we get old, we keep our wits, we got older
sooner than later, so we know
more than our dads, too.
- old friends well imagined
- happy ever after any way,
don't aspire, little maker
of good sensed peace,
to stave off thermo nuclear war
by your self, aight, here we go,
make up a master mind board
of suggesters
by your self,
HelloWorld,
with you
in a minute,
I am in a consultation,
relationships with dead friends, such are
deeply personal, core ties to old times, remember
we can hear them say the same damnedlies, or listen,
שָׂכַל together with stars consider real the times

analagous to tuning back when zero beat, was sought
to make one wise,
in Genesis, esoteric
in the gaps,
she saw he never knew, so Cain did, for sure…

hey, old enemy of me, I cannot remember why
I was afraid of you, and never got to know you,

but I recognized your art, the other day,
in an old, old magazine ad,
then that leads to us in a sense, innocent,
a lost soul I had no sympathy for, I was his bully,

so he's dead and we're okeh, spiritually, we talked,
I told him I had changed, he told me he'd broken,
got busted in Oklahoma, went to prison, for ****,
got religion then went nuts, and I said

I can relate.

So we stay in touch in the spirit.
I don't know how he died, but we were in situations,
where sixth grade bullying had been forgotten,
when I call this character
into my life, as a friend, known to many
mistreated in this mortal moment, laughing ever
as a complexity of never ifery, it did not ****
you to know, boys were always boys,
we always think of Infinite Jest, and laugh
at the coincidence we both read Foster Wallace.
Always sorry, for the trouble we allowed
our wild child payback voter against
peace at any price, what price glory?

The little monstors empo'w'rable in us all, rahrahrah

It was Donall Dempsy said it:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4897567/even-now-now-very-now/
The flag of self unfurls
snaps into the lost moment.
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4899302/walking-from-the-rising-sun-to-kildare-town/

Oi, this man's an inspirer of SAW such as wisdoms, never told,
could be, back when eighty percent
of us heard all our wisdom from drunks.
Now we read texts.

When the battles over,
and common sense is laughing,
some of it singing simultaneously

concurrently free presses in spirit and echoing
out side the bubble we met in as licensed wannabe

messenger shouting in the wild,
anybody home, we got lost.

As the earth moves relative to the sun, see
two degrees, is about, nearly to the Picosec
Seventy-two minutes, a parsa, in tradersprachen,

the realization, sure and certain utter destruction,
an agreed upon form of right use ness, national opinions

believe madness deters madness and nonsense in just code.
-it is not secret code, nor sacred, knowing is necessary, just
always was, all else you were told
to believe, with knowin' known
as sin, well we have recycleables
to trade, for those,
made
of the exact same historical threads
to here. On the battlefield, after all.
The point of anything we wished we did, done.

We can use our minds in ways once called praying,
we think we say we wish you the best, and hesitate, luck or grace,
favor undeserved by a wretch like me, ah, the maze,
the logos as spirit medium cord, twisted spider kite collection,
Ariadne, toss the lad a line, he's a ways to go until sense is common.
I hope you enjoyed that, it seems I asked for more, tooo often
wordvango Jul 2015
the birds seem to effortlessly
it took all of time for them to

to create a poem
hurt is involved in the crafting
it took  all of time for it to

evolve into
art , you know all, the
great things of this life contrasted

stark nakedly
on the background of
gesso and Titanium

covering up the
red blood and suffering
of all the DNA

that made us specially
so evolved yet, not
nearly enough.
wordvango Jun 2017
mine back the ground the gesso
white walls tempered
spackeled like oranges on the limbs
the  fore the front of my scant
table and chair an apple scent
from a bowl of potpourri
the subject is inside the
two brown worn out doors
blinking as daylight fades
away
wordvango Dec 2015
on a canvas gesso white full of wherevers and
whatever might be my palette and brushes try
to write naturally yet come out abstract now my sky
all blue and black so artfully crafted cry and rain
down surfaces into puddles of grey
When a boy,
I wanted to be as tall as my father
(he passed away October seventh
two thousand and twenty
linkedin to congestive heart failure),
who stood at his prime
about six feet and two inches
and tipped the scales
close to two hundred pounds.

Teachers and other familiar adults
chimed in that though diminutive
(yours truly, he unwittingly offered himself
as the ideal scapegoat
courtesy being longitudinally challenged,
weighing no more than an ostrich feather,
and hashtagged as "the quietest student,"
a flower child of the ninety sixties
always kept mum every single day of school),
would unexpectedly experience
peak height velocity.

Neither at ages eighteen, nineteen, twenty...
sixty three, sixty four and sixty five
bore witness to any added inches,
which topped out
around my sixteenth birthday
approximately seventy inches tall
and attendant weight a scrawny
one hundred and
twenty five pounds or thereabouts.

Actually since graduating
from Methacton High School
two score and seven years ago,
my weight ballooned
an avoirdupois unit of weight
divided into 16 ounces,
and equal to 0.453 592 kilograms
approximately forty plus times
such said constituent parts
first thing in the morning
after eliminating evacuating
re:excreting ****** waste.

A preponderance of adipose tissue
long since upended my once upon a time
twenty nine inch waist.

Slab of flab protrudes from ab - feel free to grab!

What follows initially written
quite some years ago
when being skinny as a rail meant
no meat on these lovely bones,
thus hired myself out as scared crow,
now excess adipose tissue thy foe
losing battle partially explaining
why knight spends inordinate
amount of time in his grotto.

Twas an incremental
subtle expansion of waist
plus olympic challenge to tie shoes
most likely side effects of one
or all nine prescription medications
to stave off severe melancholy,
social anxiety, panic attack, et cetera
when yours truly merely
prepubescent self starvation courtesy
emaciated Anorexic skeletal ribcage

traced (about two score
and a baker's dozen years ago),
now whereby most everything
thy tongue doth taste
immediately delivered
a randy (new man) paunch
to former washboard six pack
smooth as a fresh application
of gesso like paste
readying fleshy canvass

for partially ****
self-portrait masterpiece
(adjacent to barenaked lady)
lived three doors down
depicting mine once perfectly,
(albeit one scrawny lad)
proportioned body electric laced
with flat as a washboard physique
unlike present disk graced
whereat when sending a photograph

of shirtless self-try with futility
utilizing photoshop to get erased
displeasing equatorial zone of anatomy
saddled with unwanted
fatty tissue that defaced
proportionate rock hard stomach
one generic measly slender adult man
about five foot and ten-inch build
evincing an aura of being chaste
gone forever analogous to temptation

gobbling house constructed
of cake and confectionery,
that nearly did likewise
to Hansel and Gretel
readying their not quite
plump enough bodies
tubby slathered with baste,
yet just in the nick of time
the two abandoned minors
actually removed courtesy

children, youth and
family services (CYS)
under care of adoption in sync
with ***** work
aced the sinister plot outwitting
cannibalistic cackling
croaking old woman
inducing all to break out into song -
singing the following tune
I learned in grade school.

Loose air into pipes and croon
solo loud enough audible to man in the moon.

Sarasponda, sarasponda, sarasponda rat tat tat
Sarasponda, sarasponda, sarasponda rat tat tat
A doray-oh, A doray-boomday-oh
A doray-boomday ret set set
Ah say pah say oh.
Gabby May 12
Soft bristles, an extension of my fingertips. Bright colors splatter over a bare canvas. My mind finally running free. No words are needed here. Feelings I cannot voice start to blend into one. I search for perfection in the shapes in which I’ve created. But what is perfection when it comes to a feeling? Can a feeling ever be perfect? Perhaps not. And if that’s so why should I tear myself apart for what I create not being perfect, when the root of the creation is not perfect to begin with? To come to terms with such a realization is a feat I may never overcome. But still, I hold my brush with the expectation of such. To smear myself upon gesso with only my judgment to bear.
Jennifer McCurry Jul 2020
I have tired eyes  
For behind me sleeps the dying  
They would punish me  
If I’d let them
They are capable
And the withering of their bodies
The curling in their fingers
Are mine
  
Fringed hoods droop
Obscuring the future  

Wide  
It is vast and blank  
Not empty  
But alive in its gesso white  
Brilliant and blinking  
  
Blue highways  
Turned canvas to take me  
And be  
Just be  
Breathe ....  
What I exhale meets the next moment  
  
As cars scream by  
They go so fast  
And  
It has been my suffering  
Strapped to the backseat  
I see my reflection in the rear view  
I am reluctantly drawn to catch my eye  
Her hold  
Pulls me back  
Tightens the buckle  
  
The lane continued without me  
Before  
Would do it again  
I am not willing  
  
The brush dots the median
It is my stroke  
  
The next town  
And it’s roadside attraction  
In cages  
For a minutes wild regard  
Of pedestrian exotica  
Nature timid and tamed  
Turn tailed to the tide  
Of oppression  
Seething counter intuitive  
Self destruction  
He paces complacency  
And laps his pride  
Like milk  
  
What opportunity  
Ability lost  
And the man  
With rotting teeth  
Bent core  
Holds the whip  
His sneer bends its tail  
Striped yellow with black  
And camouflages great promise  
  
I will pass it by  
With heartache  
And simply refuse my curiosity  
To indulge it  
Would be my key in the lock  
  
I can only pray  
That the caged finds in him  
Power and revolt  
Enough to rock itself  
And bust the barn wood  
Twisted steel through the dusty old  
Porch of his keeper  
The man in filthy bibs  
Holding a leather whip  
And spitting terror  
And unholy demise  
Of what would be wild  
  
It is enough today that it is not me  
Tired eyes  
Staring out of bars  
And shameful need  
Shaking hands reaching through  
Clutching at things  
That are not mine  
  
Tomorrow I will wake again  
And be down this road further  
I hope to find my feet dusty  
Dirt roads can seem endless  
Mine sure as hell did  
But I would enjoy  
A long stretch ahead of me  
And in it’s scenic bends  
Sights of things  
That I love  
And familiar faces  
Grinning a willingness to be there
Title a nod to Tom Robbins
Bound around
The Zodiac
We are the stars
Linen *******
White Gesso ground
razor thin
In the colours
of Escobar

— The End —