Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

It is the big picture we are after.
A hair-trigger lens, can't fix a wide angle
from space junk, killer screws loose from Sputnik,
and hurricanes like pillow ripples, much too quiet,
nor from a porch on the moon, top of the capsule,
to a thumb-blue lifeboat in heaven's wasteland,
nor from the holiest of holy canons of violence,
traceable by the anguish of a mother's cry,
as I recede into another big picture,
under the roof of my skull.

Your skull feels
the pressure
of evolution,
fixed in the
precarious future.

The dance echo's
our
dislike for chaos.

We shed
our nature
for nothing
but a glimpse
of the pattern.

" . . . killer screws loose from Sputnik . . ." compresses fear, loathing, techno-excess and hubris and nostalgia for the IGY ( International Geophysical Year), and the 1957 Sputnik ( wanderer) year, when I was twelve and still dreamed of being an astronaut, before I found out they didn't take one-eyes . . .

This is a powerful image, yet filled with whimsy-- just the qualities of a Strad violin . . . I played one once for about thirty seconds.

It was like being God, rumbling a belly laugh and knocking down mountains at the same time.

"PalePhoenix" just said my pictures had grounds that "seem to be in flux" and that is an excellent way of describing my whole, vibrating art-making self at the moment.

"Old men ought to be explorers . . ."

--T.S. Eliot


I don't expect 19-year-olds to understand my poems.

A nineteen-year-old Internet poetry critic just voted one of my poems" Yawn . ." and "awful" . . .

"So it goes", as Kurt V, Jr. says.

And "Busy, busy, busy" says Bokonon.

This is a very strong poem of yours, particularly the first four or five lines.

Thanks for the chance to see it.

If you ever want an illustrator for your books, or a cover artist, just call. It will be a pleasure.


--Z

If you ever want an illustrator for your books, or a cover artist, just call. It will be a pleasure.

What did I tell you, Mark?

Thanks for reading.... some more late night scrawl...

I've always thought it wise to see the 'bigger picture'.... never questioned its all-purpose truth. The most powerful among us tell us to look at the 'big picture', always the 'big picture' But where does the 'big picture' become end-'justifies'-horrific-means? When should the lens be focused on the sum of smaller pictures, which trump any possible 'end'? In space, there is silence. Across an ocean, there are muffled rumblings. Across a city, there is a concussion of never-ending explosions. Down the street, there are hellish near misses, where your neighbors are ripped apart.... the small picture.... thousands of them.... until the high priests of the big picture, with their 'precision munitions', are satisfied.

As for poetry.... everyone takes something different from it, and everyone fancies themself a "critic".... which is tricky business indeed, especially if said "critic" doesn't get the point of it.

Zlatko... thanks for your generous offer. It means a great deal to me. I suppose at some point I'll look up from my writing desk and it will dawn on me that I have a "book" somehow, out of my jumble of scribblings. Can't say that I'm there, however. I'm glad you enjoyed the write. I'm fascinated by space junk.... lethal tiny metal fragments whizzing by at 35,000 mph. I always wondered how much of a risk the astronauts take when they 'space-walk'....

~K and Laurie.... thanks for your replies.... much appreciated.