EASTER

I was going to write a post for this time of year, celebrated by all believers under the sun including believers in non-belief, and also a time of grief for all those enveloped in darkness, pain, and loss.

Instead I took photos of an orchid given to me more than a year ago by someone I love. This orchid has died and resurrected several times and grows more beautiful with each incarnation.

May your Sunday tomorrow fill you with joy, gratitude and renewed, reborn, invigorated love.

WHERE TO NEXT?

Hundreds of times in my life I seem to come to a crossroad with signs pointing in all directions and I stand there bewildered: which is the right road? Which one is my road?

Usually the befuddlement doesn't last very long simply because it's impossible to stand there gaping indefinitely at the signs. You have to keep walking. So I keep on walking in the same direction I was going when the crossroads appeared. But I still am not sure that I'm on the right road - please don't ask me to define 'right road'. All I know is that I would know if it was the right one for me.

Here I am again at crossroad number umpteen and it's to do with my artist-life which is to say, my life per se. For me, there's no separation between being and making stuff which may be called art. It's not a job or hobby or ambition but simply a characteristic, like my height or eye-colour or fingerprint. When I say I don't know if I'm on the right road, I don't mean that I'm wondering if I should be doing something else, like plumbing, or horticulture, or brain surgery. I'm not completely bonkers, there's reality, there are limitations. The art-making thing is a gift I was born with and that's that. The crossroads puzzle is about what to do with that gift which is the same thing as saying: what to do with my life? What shape should I give it?

Anyway, ruminating in this fashion I decided to put together a kind of retrospective catalogue of my paintings in the hope that the past trajectory can point the way to whatever my future (whatever's left of it!) may be. Like the photobooks of old drawings and of bookworks I made a while back, only one copy is being printed for my own use, but there's an online link that I can share.

THE ANGST OF COMMENTING

Is it just me, or is everybody who sometimes comments in blogs or other social media prone to angst-attacks, either before, during or after the act? If you are subject to this syndrome (which did not exist before the internet) I'd be interested to hear your variations on the theme.

Instead of expounding on my own foibles, faux pas, fears, fallacies etc. in this department I've enacted some of them in order to entertain you. This too is a form of egocentricity.

DREAM LOGIC

The logic of dream-life is what waking life would be like if it wasn't so illogical. Here's the dream I had last night.

In case you can't read the above:

I'm walking in a desert with my parents. My father is old and wears a dark overcoat and hat. My mother rides a horse. Suddenly I fall into a deep well, I look up and see my father peering down. There's no way I can climb out of the well. I'm thinking that it will take a crane or other equipment to lift me out but we're far away and this would take a long time and be very expensive. My mother goes off to get help. Then I see that I have a mobile phone and could call the Fire Dept. who will have ladders etc.  But I can't figure out how to dial their number. All of a sudden I'm out of the well and standing by a food stall just up the road. I ask the woman to show me how to dial the Fire Dept. She does so and I explain that I've fallen down a well and need to be pulled out. As I say this, I realise that I'll have to jump back into the well so that when the Firemen arrive they can rescue me. I can't let them come for nothing.

OBSERVE THE STARS

The serial coincidences that are currently haunting me continue to appear.
Yesterday afternoon, Mel Calman's name came up in a conversation (the friend I was talking with used to know him). He happens to be one of my all-time favourite cartoonists. Tonight, eyes tight shut as per the rules, what book do you think my un-directed hand pulled out? I have crowded bookshelves in three different rooms and do not know what book is on each shelf.

The Big Novel by Mel Calman. On p.21 part of the text with the cartoon was: "...you tell me to observe the stars"

YOU TELL ME TO OBSERVE THE STARS
Okay but what can they show,
apart from Star Wars,
that I don't already know?

My horoscope?
That's just a soap
opera with predictable plot.
If I'm a Lion, as the star signs say,
why do I look like a dot
on the milkyway?

Is it stars of showbiz I should observe
or the other big biznesses with so much nerve?
I'm afraid I lack the concentration
to follow their myriad machinations.

If I had a telescope I might have been an astronomista
but right now I'm only an artista.

LOST BABY

If you've read my in-progress on-line autobio, you'll understand why I am startled by today's encounter with this particular book and the particular sentence on the page I opened. The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck, p.206: "Too late she realized she wanted to keep the baby." 

TOO LATE SHE REALIZED SHE WANTED TO KEEP THE BABY 

Now this is really weird,
how could you know these things are seared
in my heart and in my hand
a lost baby, a lost land?

Could this be the fourth dimension
where such deeply buried tensions
are revealed by random choices,
unifying disparate voices?

Mind blank, eyes shut, open a book at any page
and sitting there in a word cage
some kind of message waits for me
its coded meaning to set free.

THE PERSPECTIVE OF INTERESTS LEADS THE UNWARY ASTRAY

Interestingly, I'm finding that relying on chance as a trigger for inspiration not only provides provocative themes, but also seems to find synchronicities between them.

This evening I ran my blind hands across a high-up shelf and pulled out The Mind and Heart of Love by M.C. D'Arcy, opened it at p.248 and hit on this sentence:
... "the perspective of interests" leads the unwary astray. 

THE "PERSPECTIVE OF INTERESTS" LEADS THE UNWARY ASTRAY

Is a hidden agenda what you're trying to say?
If so I agree with the above,
there's more to the mind and heart of love
than meets the eye, the ear and more private parts. 

When you say you love me more than all the rest
I'll never know if in your heart
you mean I'm the one who passed your test,
a test I never knew I took.

Unwary I am, unwary I'll remain,
my own agenda's an open book.
If our perspective of interests is not the same
well, that's a shame,
but the road we're on is called "Astray"
maybe we'll meet love on the way.

BLURRING THE DISTINCTIONS

The book randomly chosen tonight: Georgia O'Keeffe by Lisa Mintz Messinger. The random line, P.132: "...blurring the distinctions between what was near and what was far." 

BLURRING THE DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN WHAT WAS NEAR AND WHAT WAS FAR 

The future oh so distant
when I was just a child
is now the present instant
which I'm about to file. 

Maybe these distinctions
between the far and near
are only false convictions
we cling to out of fear

of being lost in space
with no sense of direction
which is, in fact, the case,
worthy of inspection.

Why not a history class
where some ancient bloody mess
is not taught as the past
but today's news, hot off the press?

Is everything déja vu?
Yes, I think so. Do yu?

I TALK TO MYSELF

Blindly chosen book and line today - Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche.
P.214: "... I talk to myself, as one who has plenty of time"

I TALK TO MYSELF, AS ONE WHO HAS PLENTY OF TIME

though time is precisely what I have not.
I say to myself as I write this rhyme:
As poet I know I'm not so hot,
so why am I wasting my dwindling hours
on what is a pastime, nothing more.
Shouldn't I be using my artist powers
on something closer to the core
of what I'm on this planet for? 

Are you saying what I think you're saying,
comes a reply from the other me,
that time is wasted when you're playing?

Okay, I say, I do agree
that art and play are interconnected,
but how will I ever be respected
if all I can add to my CV
is a rhyme for you and a rhyme for me?

Suddenly, would you believe,
something pops out of my sleeve.
It's Zarathustra and he's peeved,
shoves me and my other self away.

I'm the one you called today
when at my words you aimed your finger,
you're in luck 'cause I can linger.
Forget about esteem,
read what I said, page two-sixteen:
"....spread out laughter like a coloured canopy."
Avoid the bland, the syrupy,
the fake, the flip, the pre-digested.
And with this my case is rested.

A LA RECHERCHE

At 6:14 AM today I was drifting into sleep when, again, a sentence just popped up. This time it was in French:  "On peut forcer un souvenir" 
 
I had to get up and write it down. Later the rest arrived. Here it is, with my very rough, free translation below. I prefer the French version.

ON PEUT FORCER UN SOUVENIR

mais pas besoin de l'expliquer
passé, présent ou avenir
ne devraient pas se prolonger. 

Proust a cherché le temps perdu,
tant mieux pour lui, il l'a trouvé.
Heureusement qu' il n'a pas su
que sa recherche me fait bailler.

J'éspère vivement, O mes amis,
que mes vers ne vous causent pas offense.
Pour mon ennui, O je vous prie,
accordez-moi vôtre indulgence.

************************************************

YOU CAN FORCE A SOUVENIR 
 
but there's no need for explanations.
Past or future or now and here
don't have to be investigations.

Proust did find his temps perdu,
all praise to him, it was well drawn.
But thankfully he never knew
his research only makes me yawn.

I hope sincerely, O my friends,
that my verse doesn't cause offense
and for my undoubted ignorance
I pray grant me your indulgence.