Spring in Burlington
blossoms and fragrance
so beautiful it’s painful
pent up deliberation
warmth and deliverance
so urgent, so delightful
thawing confusion
unfurling destiny dance
so rich with potential
growth is vocation
a calling, a romance
so certain, so natural
green field explosion
clean new expanse
so forgiving, so impartial
Spring in Burlington
maybe one more chance
so opening, so hopeful.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Wait it Wasn't Real Leather
Those first cowboy boots at about fifteen had a stacked heel
nicely tooled, deep brown, but wait they weren’t real
leather, they were just like me – all persona
Like Naugahyde back in the 60’s and 70’s
like Frank Zappa’s plastic people
it had all gotten so unreal, so unnatural
That one month stay in the psych ward in ‘72
they had real leather in the arts and crafts room
I laced cigarette cases and fashioned myself
a large brown leather satchel
I started to get real
It was just an initiation
that same year what got real was so unreal
I still can’t figure it out all these years later
But I do know the difference
between being it and wearing it
Wait – I don’t want to tell this same story now
maybe its not real leather means nobody died
that year – no sacrifices had to be made
for me loved or outfitted or seated
in reality – comfortable and styling. A good idea!
But – he is dead its true though it seems unreal
It’s a weight, a secret and a mystery that I hold
and I’m not waiting to meet him in Heaven or Hell
the scene was faked and they never will tell
My suspicions don’t fit with the story I was told.
It broke my heart, and nothing seemed real
dissolving blow by blow - no love left in me
I took your bodies for your company
and gave you mine if you had lines,
till the trading deficit left a poverty
that made faux leather boots seem fine and haughty.
No wonder people climb the material ladder
trying to get back up
but I’d rather one nice broken in real thing
I’ve learned to work and cry and laugh and sing
I’ve been fooled and stung and loved and blessed
since then a son and much of life has come and gone
I’m not a cowgirl, those aren’t my boots
no need to blow it all up any bigger than it really is,
these poor old lines are fine enough, they’re really mine.
nicely tooled, deep brown, but wait they weren’t real
leather, they were just like me – all persona
Like Naugahyde back in the 60’s and 70’s
like Frank Zappa’s plastic people
it had all gotten so unreal, so unnatural
That one month stay in the psych ward in ‘72
they had real leather in the arts and crafts room
I laced cigarette cases and fashioned myself
a large brown leather satchel
I started to get real
It was just an initiation
that same year what got real was so unreal
I still can’t figure it out all these years later
But I do know the difference
between being it and wearing it
Wait – I don’t want to tell this same story now
maybe its not real leather means nobody died
that year – no sacrifices had to be made
for me loved or outfitted or seated
in reality – comfortable and styling. A good idea!
But – he is dead its true though it seems unreal
It’s a weight, a secret and a mystery that I hold
and I’m not waiting to meet him in Heaven or Hell
the scene was faked and they never will tell
My suspicions don’t fit with the story I was told.
It broke my heart, and nothing seemed real
dissolving blow by blow - no love left in me
I took your bodies for your company
and gave you mine if you had lines,
till the trading deficit left a poverty
that made faux leather boots seem fine and haughty.
No wonder people climb the material ladder
trying to get back up
but I’d rather one nice broken in real thing
I’ve learned to work and cry and laugh and sing
I’ve been fooled and stung and loved and blessed
since then a son and much of life has come and gone
I’m not a cowgirl, those aren’t my boots
no need to blow it all up any bigger than it really is,
these poor old lines are fine enough, they’re really mine.
Uninhabited Woman
Empty.
Running on empty.
The lights are on
and she’s orbiting Epsilon
but nobody’s home
her cell circuits roam
she’s on the take
on the make, all lies
taking you in
with her distant eyes
Empty.
Running on empty.
She’s a goddess
She’s a star
Whatever you say she is
right you are
a muse, a nymph, a mystery
she’s running from her history
her body paradoxical
show stopping sexy
amazing, metaphorical maybe
for you
but for her
it is a distant hunting ground
seen from a ridge
through too much time
to make it out or bridge
from body to heart
head to toe
uninhabited woman
no way to know
how to live in her skin
or be warmed by the sun
or be loved in safety
or to have run and won...
Not yet.
Running on empty.
The lights are on
and she’s orbiting Epsilon
but nobody’s home
her cell circuits roam
she’s on the take
on the make, all lies
taking you in
with her distant eyes
Empty.
Running on empty.
She’s a goddess
She’s a star
Whatever you say she is
right you are
a muse, a nymph, a mystery
she’s running from her history
her body paradoxical
show stopping sexy
amazing, metaphorical maybe
for you
but for her
it is a distant hunting ground
seen from a ridge
through too much time
to make it out or bridge
from body to heart
head to toe
uninhabited woman
no way to know
how to live in her skin
or be warmed by the sun
or be loved in safety
or to have run and won...
Not yet.
Seeing in the Dark
The attraction to photography
is about its reversed paradoxes
the negative is what you strive for
a good negative makes a good positive
these concepts were lost on me, metaphorically
till recently...
hanging out there a long time
you see that you can see in the dark
that it too has information
that can register as helpful and orienting.
We strive for having details in the shadows
a little something in the clear thin parts
of the negative.
One of my favorites is that you need
a dark cloth to see
to focus with the 4X5
too much light, normal light –
and you can’t see to focus at all
and with the 35mm you really
can’t focus well in the dark...
I love shooting at night
and learned to give myself
depth of field
to focus by knowing
rather than seeing
Its stuff like this
that taught me how to survive
the impossible logic
of my complicated family.
Delivered by a visiting mailman
a stack of the undeliverable
a new world of perception
arrived suddenly the year the music died.
I needed to make friends with the dark
because that’s where I lived for a time,
eclipsed.
It wasn’t that I was locked in the cellar for years
to live like an animal by my crazy parents exactly
but there was the month in the psych ward
and being grounded for a year and a half
for trying to escape my entrapment
up on the mountain at Field Stone Farm
which says just how fertile that place wasn’t
growing up an oxymoron
with alcoholic annihilating sadist
shadow masculine
and the requisite passive aggressive feminine
not what I respected, expected
in my coming – of age.
I came to having walked around entombed
in the fortress of myself for years and years.
From behind the polished ground glass and hard metal body
I could meet you, tolerate my proximity to you
have some control over how it would look
how things would develop between us.
I could handle seeing you in two dimensions.
I could start to see what was really going on
but my images lacked emotion
had a flatness, a detachment
that made it something other than art -
which requires feeling.
I loved
the technical aspects
machine printing...processing
the magic of chemistry
in tanks, trays and in my blood
customizing titrations for the right effect...
got me by for the next dozen years or so...
and then it all stopped working...
Light, dark, chemistry, mechanics,
all paradox and false imagery for a while.
Years later it’s a different world.
Heart opened, self restored, revised
strength and knowing
in touch, listening, vibrational fields.
I still love the light, the textures,
the raw beauty of the physical world
am all the more curious
about the dynamics of proximity
the movement between souls
between times in life
dancing the cycles of the year,
seeking only love and truth.
Freedom is to move about and among.
Eye to eye, seen and seen, known and known
selective internal armor
only when necessary, not all the time...
Seemingly secure and self possessed
Secretly to this day preferring to walk about at night
Inconspicuous, quiet, less stimulating, less invasive
leaving more room to enter and perceive the world
compared to the bright busy light of day
that is just so full of itself...
so exposing, illuminating, of everything.
is about its reversed paradoxes
the negative is what you strive for
a good negative makes a good positive
these concepts were lost on me, metaphorically
till recently...
hanging out there a long time
you see that you can see in the dark
that it too has information
that can register as helpful and orienting.
We strive for having details in the shadows
a little something in the clear thin parts
of the negative.
One of my favorites is that you need
a dark cloth to see
to focus with the 4X5
too much light, normal light –
and you can’t see to focus at all
and with the 35mm you really
can’t focus well in the dark...
I love shooting at night
and learned to give myself
depth of field
to focus by knowing
rather than seeing
Its stuff like this
that taught me how to survive
the impossible logic
of my complicated family.
Delivered by a visiting mailman
a stack of the undeliverable
a new world of perception
arrived suddenly the year the music died.
I needed to make friends with the dark
because that’s where I lived for a time,
eclipsed.
It wasn’t that I was locked in the cellar for years
to live like an animal by my crazy parents exactly
but there was the month in the psych ward
and being grounded for a year and a half
for trying to escape my entrapment
up on the mountain at Field Stone Farm
which says just how fertile that place wasn’t
growing up an oxymoron
with alcoholic annihilating sadist
shadow masculine
and the requisite passive aggressive feminine
not what I respected, expected
in my coming – of age.
I came to having walked around entombed
in the fortress of myself for years and years.
From behind the polished ground glass and hard metal body
I could meet you, tolerate my proximity to you
have some control over how it would look
how things would develop between us.
I could handle seeing you in two dimensions.
I could start to see what was really going on
but my images lacked emotion
had a flatness, a detachment
that made it something other than art -
which requires feeling.
I loved
the technical aspects
machine printing...processing
the magic of chemistry
in tanks, trays and in my blood
customizing titrations for the right effect...
got me by for the next dozen years or so...
and then it all stopped working...
Light, dark, chemistry, mechanics,
all paradox and false imagery for a while.
Years later it’s a different world.
Heart opened, self restored, revised
strength and knowing
in touch, listening, vibrational fields.
I still love the light, the textures,
the raw beauty of the physical world
am all the more curious
about the dynamics of proximity
the movement between souls
between times in life
dancing the cycles of the year,
seeking only love and truth.
Freedom is to move about and among.
Eye to eye, seen and seen, known and known
selective internal armor
only when necessary, not all the time...
Seemingly secure and self possessed
Secretly to this day preferring to walk about at night
Inconspicuous, quiet, less stimulating, less invasive
leaving more room to enter and perceive the world
compared to the bright busy light of day
that is just so full of itself...
so exposing, illuminating, of everything.
Love You To Death
Love you to death darling, Promise!
Death to you love, Cheers!
Some love death, difficulty, discord....
not much left for love life
the star of your own death-life production company
a cult of the gothic neopathetic...
Long live cutting flesh and malnourished bones
rotting teeth under beautiful new caps
face botoxed to kill off the nervy lines of pain
pain erasers essential for this cult of beauty
Beautiful death, beautiful pain.
Love you to death darling, promise
there’s no room for you to live with my love
my love deadly, never leaving you ever...
Don’t bother trying to run honey...
you can’t out run this love
that keeps wraps on you
and has your back.
Death to you love, Cheers!
Your deadly love killing me daily
killing off whatever I would or could be
so you can be in your love cult with me
loving to the point of obliteration,
out of obligation so as not to offend
those who raised us to love and honor commitment...
I love you to death darling, Promise!
Our love feasts infused with unintended poisons,
no rage, no ruffled feathers, no resentments
look at what a great couple we have always been
and will always be, right darling?
We’ll consume each other’s damned, sweet offerings
our self - neglect invisible behind facades of looking good
we’ll be cheery and polite as we cut
each other down to bite-size bits
to maintain the status quo
the hours, days, weeks and years roll by
neither of us ever really lived
but we loved each other to death
didn’t we darling? Cheers.
Death to you love, Cheers!
Some love death, difficulty, discord....
not much left for love life
the star of your own death-life production company
a cult of the gothic neopathetic...
Long live cutting flesh and malnourished bones
rotting teeth under beautiful new caps
face botoxed to kill off the nervy lines of pain
pain erasers essential for this cult of beauty
Beautiful death, beautiful pain.
Love you to death darling, promise
there’s no room for you to live with my love
my love deadly, never leaving you ever...
Don’t bother trying to run honey...
you can’t out run this love
that keeps wraps on you
and has your back.
Death to you love, Cheers!
Your deadly love killing me daily
killing off whatever I would or could be
so you can be in your love cult with me
loving to the point of obliteration,
out of obligation so as not to offend
those who raised us to love and honor commitment...
I love you to death darling, Promise!
Our love feasts infused with unintended poisons,
no rage, no ruffled feathers, no resentments
look at what a great couple we have always been
and will always be, right darling?
We’ll consume each other’s damned, sweet offerings
our self - neglect invisible behind facades of looking good
we’ll be cheery and polite as we cut
each other down to bite-size bits
to maintain the status quo
the hours, days, weeks and years roll by
neither of us ever really lived
but we loved each other to death
didn’t we darling? Cheers.
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