The story so far ...

I started this blog to squirrel away some of my found poems, hiding them in plain sight and not drawing attention to them. But now that I'm posting for public consumption, I have to lay them out: There they are, the first posts, for everyone to ignore, because they're not the point anymore. Until another one comes along, then it might sneak in here.

The point now is, I've joined the fun at the fun-a-day project by artclash again this year, having chosen a project and pledged to do one thing for that project every day in January. At the same time, anyone else who wants to is working on their own project, then we all get together at Studio 34 on February 14 and show off our goods to each other and everyone else. This will be the fifth year Artclash has been at it; it'll be my second year participating. My first year, I made 31 stencils, and those became the custom prayer flags I make.

This year, I'm making art for its own sake, for its exploration and communication value. As soon as I start making stuff for the purpose of selling it, it becomes not-so-much art to me. It's the process that I get the most out of, not the finished product, so I constantly need to be making something new if I'm going to learn anything. The year 2008 has mostly been about laying fallow, grounding myself, taking things in and breaking them down. In 2009 it's time for things to start pouring out again, having magically recombined into something not immediately recognizable. It is, after all, the year of the ox.

I'm using this year's fun-a-day project as a jumping off point and doing a swap a day, making stuff and mailing it to somebody I've never met, in exchange for getting something similar from someone who's never met me. Every day I get to make/mail something completely different from the day before, while under the same rubric. Brought to me by swap-bot. Then at the end of the project, I'll show off everything I've gotten next to pictures of everything I've sent. And I'm gonna blog about the whole thing too!

Moncho

Long ago, no animals had voices.
They used their rough tongues
A well developed sense of touch
pieces of fur caught on bushes
showed which way one had walked.

Leave a note at campfire remains
A candle or two where the air is still
Bend your head down
lie down and curl up
then take your hand away.

Fish hooks from the bones
directed toward survival
will note their comings and goings
and their sense of balance
could keep watch over the universe.

struggling or becalmed

This man is telling you that it is raining.
resistance - blind, dogged, desperate,
a rehearsal in my hotel,
almost anything you want,
these things were of equal weight.

other oceans compare
days, events intimately connected
only records of arriving
will note their comings & goings.

Shallow edges would recede
when a boat splits open on
heads which explode with heavy rains.
the powerful forces present in large structures
bring it to safe harbor
until the boats are safely beached beyond
the answer that could, and often did,
in a word vary slightly
would trade hopeless fragments
its processing would gain, and
artifacts of little value would own history.

domodossola

who built these homes?
who left them?
who named these stations
the train overlooks?
once people came,
overlooked the valley,
scratched moss off of stones,
cracked nails, split them just there
piled them just so
and lived under them.
No one wanted the
stones when they left.
Moss came, and split the stone
where it always would have
on its own.

august 2006

on the moon

aid to
forces
forced to
as guarantor
guarantee
war
with
the new
larger role

april 2003

christine in michigan

vegetables for the big cities
supply the blood with food
pressed into wine, dried and pressed
into the cloth and comes up again quite close,
immense distances away from us.

swells come in and swirl
will people be pushed aside in a few
found in the ruins of ancient cities
where it went in. In again, out again,
fine needles of bone, ivory, gold, and bronze
protect the finger that is pushing the needle
push the blood around.

beginnings: places that preserve one small
building, a neighborhood, an entire town;
each stone helps to support every other stone in
places that preserve customs transplanted
different crops on the same land
their fortunes on the necks and arms.
necklaces of pieces of stone, horn or the teeth
and your home truly you
bones and thread from grass.

Bone is as strong and tough as concrete.
needle is a thin steel shaft with a sharp point.

may 2006

lala in guyana

descendants of slaves and laborers
work on the plantations:
pockets of the ruling few
wheel anxiously about in
aluminum plants.

rocks that promise to
crash over precipices
bear the brilliant costumes
of creatures
of the north.

leave-taking is
a colony for convicts,
a drowsy empire deep in the heart.

2004

root canal

This part is the root. The part that shows
our teeth help give shape to our faces.
The diagram shows It is not a science.
We make some sounds, laying it underground.
It may be down below the surface.

I have loved you
very close together
farther apart.
in such a way that when it moves down
one would try to drink wood or build a fire
There were riots,
But most houses do not burn down.
the movements of the stars
were kept warm in a different way.

the hardest material in the human
is held down, is hidden in the jaw.
held down a longer time.
and nerves are found
cutting, tearing and grinding
forced from the lungs out of the body.

A strange thing happens
organized armies, a dinner plate of silk,
memory, imagination, ability to think,
they come to seem life-size.

2003