Thursday, February 26, 2009

at the picasso cafe redux...


Wednesday, February 25, 2009

a red wood table & on it blue bottles...

A red wood table & on it blue bottles
& books folded
Yellow lined odysseys & paint stained breezes
Touching
Traveling
Mountain seas
Seeing things
A cup of things
Red rose & white rose
Amber & a stick of a tree
Climbs & ravens & spiraling shores
Touching a red wood table & on it blue bottles
Traveling
- -
Smooth
As
Amber
& paint stained breezes

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

unwieldy dream...

Snowy red lanterns
In a row
Teardrops & flights
Near an icy shore
- -
Sing her dream, her unwieldy dream

songwriter...

Lyrics written at midnight
A quiet piano
In a quiet talk
A butter moon on the roof & in the window
- -
The streetlamps are dark & cold

Monday, February 23, 2009

Sunday, February 22, 2009

the artist life...

Artists are kindred spirits. Well, mostly they are... like that group in the summer of '58 on Cape Cod. There was the piano player, the sketcher, the painter, poets and beatniks... and the girl drummer. That group... they were kindred spirits living the artist life.

The artist life is quick writing, fast painting, sand in your shoes... sunburn and drink, moonburn and smoke... it is Daniels Jack and Stevens Jack... Jacque, Jacque, Jacque! It's all those things. Panatelas, the Freshmen, and saxophone players.

There is this guy I know and he said and he is probably right, "...just say you are an artist and by God you are an artist!"

But there is a way to tell an artist. They don't complain. They don't complain about litterbugs or bad drivers... theirs is a more important journey than the petty sniffles and hisses of complaining. For me that is how you know an artist is an artist... he (she) don't complain.

But back to that group in 1958: Bob the piano player, Peter the sketcher, "so and so" the painter (cannot remember her name but she painted about chess and she painted heavy - in oils), poets and beatniks Kerouac Jack and the Artiste du Jazz... and Jean the drummer.

When writing about 49 years ago, there are things you can't remember and things you don't want to remember - all quite neat - fact checking, the hell with that! Take the kinship of Kerouac Jack and the Artiste du Jazz; Kerouac closer to du Jazz than to Neal Cassady! Check that fact!

Kerouac Jack in his poem "Goofball Blues" gets off to an undecorative start and does the old dead thing at the end, When I am old I'll yawn / In the Flannel Grave,. The Artiste du Jazz sort of doing the same thing a few years later in "Milo Hewes," There on the stand / Died Milo Hewes, 'Jazzman of the Year.' Like sure, sure... young writers have this thing about death... like how glamorous... and of course more glamorous if it is because of drugs and/or speed (as in automobiles and planes).

Peter the sketcher put art in that show in 1958 in Marion, Massachusetts, the first annual show (the first annual of one). Bob the piano player noodles in the background "Bye Bye Blackbird" and "Bye Bye Blackbird" and "Bye Bye Blackbird." Jean on drums filling. And then she breaks into and belts out her favorite Steve Allen song (he wrote 10,000 songs you know): You're walkin' along the street / Or you're at a party / Or else you're alone and then you suddenly dig / You're lookin' in someone's eyes / You suddenly realize / This could be the start of something big. And Bob is smoking and drinking and playing "Bye Bye Blackbird." I'll arrive late tonight / Blackbird, bye bye. And Kerouac Jack and the Artiste du Jazz did arrive late, very late. They brought with them the chess painter heavy painter in oils and she brought two of her canvases called "Chess" and "Chess." They were displayed along with the sketches of Peter the sketcher, and Bob played, and Jean drummed and sang. And Kerouac and du Jazz read their poetry, puffing in unison, And the sun came up on Buzzards Bay. All quite heavy.

The End.

Footnote: Peter the sketcher had 19 sketches in that show in 1958; one sketch is said to still exist but nobody knows where it is...

Post Script: Another way to tell an artist is an artist: a real artist living the artist life will sit at the corner of a bar and drink black coffee and look out at the water and do whatever necessary to avoid painting or writing.

The End Again.

Note: Written in 2007.

smells & dances in the meadow...

Buttons sideshows rock bread ovens
Puppets
Theaters
Brown red skirts twirl & whirl
& swirl
Stilt dancing & elephants playing drums
Big baked bread
Smells & dances in the meadow
Talks & sprinkles flour sugar & fiddle glaze
Sewing the sunflower ringing singing
Flying soaring what's for dessert?
Smells & dances in the meadow

blue harlequin with beard & glasses french crayon...


Saturday, February 21, 2009

Friday, February 20, 2009

chinese tallow tree french crayon...


Saturday, February 14, 2009

branches watercolor...


Friday, February 13, 2009

hobo night...

Black felt hat wide brim dent
Out the boxcar door
Speeding
No beans no rice
Branches of birds & stars whistle by
Hobo night
No beans no rice
He sleeps his handkerchief wrapped with treasure
He sleeps his ring & Rolex too
No beans no rice
Kindling & brick
Water boiling
Dogs wander tracks & fires
No beans no rice
Hobo night
Load up the train
Free air mussed hair
To where there's trees
Seashells
&
Salt
&
Breath
&
Beans & rice
- -
& where
Dogs don't wander anymore
- -
A book of poetry in his vest

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

soft falls quick sketch french crayon...


soft falls...

Bird
Of melody & twists
Chick Corea
Spotlights hanging along the ceiling
Dark & smoky
Playing the stage in blues & greens
A piano a bass a drum
Wings flutter & hum
Harmony & a light rain
Outside dampens the streets & the flickering neon
Telegraph hills
&
Roman girl -
Pictures
at Soft Falls
Piano
Bass
Slides of drinks & doilies
Drumming at
Charlie's Gone By
Duke's Place
Jazz Riposte
The hearts take off
Beating
Thumping where hill people fly
&
There
Are
Two -
Now Hiromi a light on a watery street
Trills dancing contemplative & big
Wings beating - beating - - & beating
- -
at Soft Falls

Saturday, February 7, 2009

boss...

In purple youths
Hip face
Guitar man shrimp shack saxophone
A
Purple
Face
Lines of peach & will of the wisps
Rock out!
Shades & palisades chin hair cascades
Bop zop at the birdfeeder
In birdland bird & boss
Faster than stampeding wildebeest
Prettier than flamingo sky
Press the horn press the string
Bop zop bowls
Of
Paint
&
Poise
&
High tea
Lands & oceans
& a hip face rocker
Playing the music

boss watercolor markers...


Friday, February 6, 2009

myriads...

myriads
pine needles sands glass
snow
&
melts
tumbleweeds & scrubs
wafers &
savannah's fiery kings;
cold moons
cold suns
?
?

Thursday, February 5, 2009

bird's tree watercolor markers...


bird's tree...

Bird's tree
On the green plain
Seas of grass
Seas of sky
Apples
&
Scrapples
On
The
Land
- -
A groove

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

sculler & gulls marker & crayon...


seagull haiku...

On the horizon
a seagull -
No. Two seagulls

At sunset
a crow & a seagull
alight

The sun's high
a snow bank trickles -
Gulls drink

3 seasons of gulls -
Now winter

The Sarah & the Sculler dock
& bring with them
seagulls

High-flying gulls -
In front of Hilliard's, broken clamshells