Random, Abstract Poetry - 1/4/09

I take the Brooklyn Rail newspaper and underline words and phases in the articles that catch my attention. Then circle a word or phrase for the title. It's more of a subtractive process, taking a page of words and editing down to a poem or maybe several. It's kind of backwards from the traditional process of adding words to a blank page, but it works for me. The pieces of newspaper with these random abstract poems get used as collage material in my artwork. I create the artwork. My darker, semi-schizophrenic alter ego creates the poetry.

The concept of taking something that already exists and turning it into something new was inspired by a Richard Prince exhibition I visited at the Guggenheim - 2008. His re-photography, nurse paintings, and deKooning woman, collage paintings were my favorites.


Who Remain Largely Unknown
The sun rises,
In the early morning,
On a cold, icy day.
Bright spots mark the time.
The colors become obvious.
It's the day before Thanksgiving.

Go to the second floor.
You go, because it's warm.
Nobody there.
Where are they going?

Sitting in the cold,
Embracing and chanting.
We are all part of the fabric.
A fabric of no color.
The reality is,
You might not exist.

You can sleep now.


As They Sing
Because it's not safe,
Take chances because.
It sounds a lot like folk.

Addiction.
Meandering into the ether.
Plants and animals describe math.

Loosely translated.
Like here and there.
Talented, but occasionally open.
To say you got up.
You're doing well.


Throughout
Somewhat ridiculous.
This guy pays a fine.
If you're looking,
This could be the guy.

That brings to mind.
I'm spilling out my heart.
Lonely, depressing.

Start sparsely, then slowly build.
This is my last song.
A theme continued.

The good news is,
Imagery is beautiful.
And you will have,
No trouble remembering.


Original Elevator
That's a bad thing.
Channeling cowboys and angels.
I like their influence.

We all have secrets.
Don't tell.

Feeling alone.
There's a difference between,
Being influenced, and being.
Between recycling, and doing.

Start believing.
They have been shoveling even more.


Go No Further
Watching.
I had the uncontrollable urge.
Fond of adventurous souls.
Neither like the other.
Similarity with the king?
Yes, in fact, many.

You might hear noise,
When they listen.
That doesn't sound coherent.

You have heard it,
More than a few times.
Mechanical and emotional.

Random, Abstract Poetry - The Sunday Edition 12/21/08

I take the Brooklyn Rail newspaper and underline words and phases in the articles that catch my attention. Then circle a word or phrase for the title. It's more of a subtractive process, taking a page of words and editing down to a poem or maybe several. It's kind of backwards from the traditional process of adding words to a blank page. But it works for me. The pieces of newspaper with these random abstract poems get used as collage material in my artwork. I create the artwork. My darker, semi-schizophrenic alter ego creates the poetry.

The concept of taking something that already exists and turning it into something new has been on mind ever since I saw the Richard Prince exhibition at the Guggenheim - 2008. His re-photography, nurse paintings, and deKooning woman, collage paintings were especially inspiring.


The Love Song
It's familiar.
Conjuring, and recreating.
Engaged in a frenzied effort.
Defining the end points,
Between today and yesterday.

A loosely fictionalized account.
Introduced by people,
Powerful, corporate, non-democratic.
The tribe.

An intense revolution.
Global warming, war, financial collapse,
The government?
Corporate greed?

The tribe asks,
War for freedom, a moral choice?
Control, manipulate, pressure, persuade.
The system that controls us.

We should learn a thing or two.
History repeats itself.


Back In The Day
Honest working people.
Well meaning, sincere,
Mutual trust.
Feeling from virtue.
The countryside.

Poetry of the mundane.
Long periods of silence.
The simple story.
To simply be.

And that's the problem.
The other end.

Give less, say more.
A desperation for fame.
Insincerity, cynicism, self-righteousness.
Over abundant.
A climatic climax.

Deception, frustration, pressure
Feel the pressure.
The grinding pressure.
Try to figure out the problem.
It's their problem.

Consciousness overwhelmed.
Torn families.
Feeling all alone.
Tragedy, suicide, deadly violence.
The complex life.
When does it end?

The story continues forever.


The Situation Metastasizes
Trapped inside a bubble.
Mired in delusion.
Thinking of a nightmare.

Burn the dark poetry.
It's a lesser work.
A neatly crafted diversion.

Refer to the step-by-step conspiracy.
One revelation.
The game is literal.
Insist on French pronunciation.

This unfortunate pair of fantasies.
Obsessing about cartoon caricatures.
The caricatures complaining,
They're too one-dimensional.
A joke?
More tragic than real.

Give me 24 hours.
A cerebral force revolves around.
Insist on mysterious food.
Then draw the characters.
Deeper, more intelligent.

Burn one of the characters.
The small, paranoid one.
Sour laughter ensues.

Still believing.
The only sanity we have left.

Walking In A Winter Wonderland

There have been a few snow flurries over the past few weeks here in NYC, but today was the first real snowfall. A whole 3". WhoooHooo!!! It was barely cold enough to keep frozen, and by late afternoon, it was already turning slushy. But it was fun to walk around in it while it lasted.

Since I lived most of my life in California, the whole concept of seeing snow is still new and exciting to me. The best part of living in NYC is not having to deal with driving in it, or even shoveling it. I'm still hoping to experience a real blizzard one of these days. I am told it's a surreal experience being in the city with no traffic on the roads.

Here are a few photos from Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Yeah, we have real trees here. How about that.




I have seen little green aliens a number of times, but this is the first one I have seen making a snowman. The aliens with the pointy heads don't like being photographed. This one started throwing snowballs at me.

Random, Abstract Poetry - 12/17/08

I take the Brooklyn Rail newspaper and underline words and phases in the articles that catch my attention. Then circle a word or phrase for the title. It's more of a subtractive process, taking a page of words and editing down to a poem or maybe several. It's kind of backwards from the traditional process of adding words to a blank page. But it works for me. The pieces of newspaper with these random abstract poems get used as collage material in my artwork. I create the artwork. My darker, semi-schizophrenic alter ego creates the poetry.

A Personal Cinema
They watch the silent film,
On a large, broken mirror.
A complex mosaic of images.
His family documentary?

People glued to fish.
Romance, marriage, and cynicism.
A boxing match.

The film answers a question.
The audience responds with painful emotion.
Jumping off of rooftops.

My face, facing down.
The moment becomes a dream.
Expectations exceeded.


A Marooned State of Orchestration
We are versed in the complexities of the mind.
A single image can recreate reality?
It can.

What lies beyond the mummified image?
Something so unusual and provocative,
We are obliged to marvel.

I no longer bother to imagine.
I am fine knowing,
I will never really understand.

He creates without any outside assistance.
A somewhat schizophrenic practice.
Painter, to camera man, to science experiment.
He should never have gotten involved.

Bringing the dead back to life.


Encapsulated In No-Mans-Land
The performance.
A snake eating it's tail.
Is anything more baffling?

A ritualistic task.
Constructed order within.
Very controlled.
Painting geometry?

Clues of actuality seem to exist.
Evoking sensations,
In the end, unobtainable.

The myth composed.
At the edge of disbelief.
Made by a jester.

No, it doesn't get any better.

Random, Abstract Poetry - The Sunday Edition

I take the Brooklyn Rail newspaper and underline words and phases in the articles that catch my attention. Then circle a word or phrase for the title. It's more of a subtractive process, taking a page of words and editing down to a poem or maybe several. It's kind of backwards from the traditional process of adding words to a blank page. But it works for me. The pieces of newspaper with these random abstract poems get used as collage material in my artwork. I create the artwork. My darker, semi-schizophrenic alter ego creates the poetry.

Global Warnings
The last prophecy from Greek mythology,
The world is flat.

It is a revised thesis discovered.
Powerful forces.
My analysis became obvious.

The convergence of,
Hot, crowded,
Dynamic shaping.
Flattening the world.

The information,
Graphs and napkin drawings.
Written in simple language.
Calculated to a wide spectrum.

The frog is hot.


A Speech About
The process is broken.
Crushed or sabotaged.
I can't remember which.

There was singing and dancing.
Speeches about,
I don't remember exactly what.

I do remember.
We have this power.
A power to make something small.
It was real.

Transmitted from television and FM radio.
I had the experience.
I saw.


An Outside Signal
In the mucky waters,
A voice began to speak.

He couldn't finish a sentence.
So he began to speak.

Cautious optimism, drowning.
Spoken in paralyzing pain.

Consider the future.
Things will not get better.
There is little doubt.
The system, a signal to all.


Embattled and Aloof
There were a lot of interesting people.
I was there.
Tilted toward philosophy.
Difficult, to a large extent.

Compliant to literature,
And ways to escape the program.

I did not exist,
And I cannot imagine.

Time running out.
The activity planned,
And prepared.

The people, hung.
I think most of us were.
To survive, was very liberating.


A Kind of Visceral Interchange
The relationship between shapes.
Shapes you have investigated.
I'm wondering,
Is that coincidental?

The tribe.
A group of painters.
Creating a kind of abstraction.

The art.
Very drawn to it.
Experimenting with shapes.
Very large rectangles.
In a way, Greek.

I was intrigued.
A complex experience with color.


They Became Negligible
An incapacity to locate.
He made a point not to.

For fear of not being able to,
To find his way back.

The successful approach.
Engaged to the present.

Dwellers for time.
Rather than the near.

Death itself is sophisticated.
The termination, successful.

A pretty girl plays the tuba.



We Are All Americans
It's sort of extending into the absurd.
We are all unified?
Everybody is adopted?
I wondered.

Our vision of reality.
It makes sense.
The equation is clearly revealed.
What was the impulse?

Two pieces,
Fractured and broken.
People talked about being,
Split into parts.
The pieces all the same.

The idea of many people.
So many people.
It's a brilliant idea.
Very efficient.


Your Personal Suburb
A mysterious row of trees.
What is hidden behind?

Let's go back.
I remember.

The beginning of visual accumulation.
Images of suburbs,
Dominate the world.
That fascinates you.

I try to figure out why.
So immersed in thinking.
It got me thinking.

Everything has to do with you.
Mowing your lawn.
The absurdity of the whole thing.


A Concrete Thought
Blacked out names.
I collect them.

I know you.
You think logically.

A different kind of thinking.
Like a Vietnamese proverb.
Live long, be thin.
Live round, be dead.

A vision of reality.
Real facts on index cards.
I'm flattered that you think.


Gleeful Spaniel?
Do you speak?
Or do I not?
I do not.
Nor I cannot.

You and I.
For you the more.
I am you.
And my the more.

You, me, I.
But you will see.
Unworthy I am.
To follow, than be.

To love and respect.
I beg in you.
To be your dog.
I speak in truth.

Random, Abstract Poetry - 12/10/08

I take the Brooklyn Rail newspaper and underline words and phases in the articles that catch my attention. Then circle a word or phrase for the title. It's more of a subtractive process, taking a page of words and editing down to a poem or maybe several. It's kind of backwards from the traditional process of adding words to a blank page. But it works for me. The pieces of newspaper with these random abstract poems get used as collage material in my artwork. I create the artwork. My darker, semi-schizophrenic alter ego creates the poetry.


A Game of Hot Potato
My head questions inside me.
What did I do?

Every afternoon,
I write a letter,
Describing what had happened.

I decline to write anything.
How to explain this?

I felt what had happened.
A sense of articulate realizations.


Even A Single Instance
A moment forever separated.
They hardly belonged.

A different generation.
A generation of people,
With little connection.

Culture, an arbitrary experience.
Paradigms in a world beginning.

Feel the tension,
Rushing sideways.
A sense we were all part of one.
The suffering was most serene.


Drawing Into A Person
It's black and white.
Disturbing values,
Found in ourselves.

Dark subjects.
Reflections of culture.

Antidotes offer dignity.
The definition incomplete.

Stories, a narrative of the parallel.
A line drawing reiterates.

The power to dream and fantasize.
How does it feel?


Contours of Souls
The souls of folk.
Interactions between other worlds.
Unasked questions.
A cloud that hung.

Encounters with those moved.
Circles question sense.

The dissonance of strange feeling,
Through the eyes of others.
How does it feel?

Question and explore what it means.
The lives of seven.
Follow them through.
All the while,
Sketching out a portrait.


Shift Exterior to Interior
It was a form of animation.
A very strange landscape.
I felt the curvature of the earth.
The experience, stuck together with tape.
I could see.

I began making drawings in the mind.
Cutting shapes.
Putting them together.
These drawings led to shapes.

I became aware.
Your drawings,
Looking from the outside.
Very complex.
Could you elaborate?

Drawing.
A different kind of focus.
I draw when I'm dreaming.
Unedited.

The place didn't allow for drawing.
They unraveled.
The drawing,
Very different.
I wanted to change nature.

Aside From Common
The only connection is loose.
For reasons never revealed.

Pursuing his subjects,
Shifting, altering,
What it means to be opposite of reverse.

Life in a way human.
This is depressing.


A Real Introspection
On the following Tuesday,
Question the beginning of philosophy.
Over the weekend,
Read our discussion.

Present one idea,
Which exemplifies the idea.
This approach is pervasive.

The connection between one is reality.
Concepts, the book rarely offers.

Interactions with reality.
Examine the real.

Random, Abstract Poetry - The Sunday Edition

I take the Brooklyn Rail newspaper and underline words and phases in the articles that catch my attention. Then circle a word or phrase for the title. It's more of a subtractive process, taking a page of words and editing down to a poem or maybe several. It's kind of backwards from the traditional process of adding words to a blank page. But it works for me. The pieces of newspaper with these random abstract poems get used as collage material in my artwork. I create the artwork. My darker, semi-schizophrenic alter ego creates the poetry.


A Wise Passiveness
The right to be never noticed.
Virtually blind?
Who became blind?

I had a memory.
Memory less prodigious.

The science to integrate form and matter.
Losing control,
Under psychotropic control.

He witnessed clearly.
The objects,
They might be rare animals.
Exquisite, for their own sake.

He recognized that.


Get Some Arms and Legs
Their experiments unsuccessful.
The dead ones,
They burn up?
Yes, you have to burn them.
Ten or twenty.

People might complain.
You tie them to a pole,
Then freeze them?
The fridge is full.

The professor a professor.
A French professor.

Open the fridge.
Arms and legs piled high.
Close the fridge.

Need I even ask?
Silence prevailed.

Academically sanctioned,
Forever.
The professor,
He went his own way.


He Might See Marginally
The visionary one.
Under the influence.

Seeing something.
Deeply inter-fused.

It might have been Venus.
Or the opiated skull of wisdom.

I'm guessing it was prophecy,
Or I would see nothing at all.


Heavy Bee Mode
Half asleep,
On the telephone.
Discussing the deal.

Killer bees.
I need some.
I will pay.
You must be careful.

Six hours later,
Expired.
An inversion of psychics,
Not physics.

It is winter.
The bees move fast.



Variations of This
Improvise every visit,
Not yet constructed.
Fact is not a factor.

Once controversial,
Now weirdly comfortable.
Neither is French.

Gather the delicate.
Ears, a lavender rose.
Hair, a red heart.

A Geisha lit a cigarette.
Outside it was pouring,
Gold glittered rain.



Not Thinking of Anything In Particular
An idiot-savant.
Walking aimlessly,
Collecting impressions.
Meticulously collected,
Strictly to be admired.

With a keen eye,
Always for the non-useful.
He collected hundreds.

Walking delirious.
Medicated by hashish,
Contemplating whatever.


Strangers Together
Art without art.
It is an exercise,
Of others creating.

Read, look, photograph,
Organize, enact.
One must participate.

I turn to surrender.
Sinister thoughts entered my head.

People hovered.
I soon become oppressive.

Watching the act,
I couldn't contain curiosity.

What are we doing?
My mind connecting with strangers.
This is different.
I didn't mind.

I felt a strange attachment.
As thought we shared something unique.

Physically found.
Relevance and meaning.
A rare experience.


Unforgettably Alienated
I think about alienation.
Go off to Canada.
No one to understand.
Sometimes murky is always clear.

Screaming poetically.
So much emotion inside.

Dissonant elements,
Complement one another.

Red, black and white.
Red and black.
Captivating simultaneously.


Divine Punishment For God
The young and seductive Chinese executioner.
She communicated pain.
Seeking, not to take pleasure,
But to dehumanize.

Obscenely erotic,
Unconventional pleasure.

Tormented, dehumanized.
Perhaps excessive.
Impossibly joyous and reckless.

Then, she called him God.


Shackled of Addiction
Loving his enemy,
Depressed, beneath the tie.
Beneath the stiff exterior.

An enemy,
Infinitely wrathful.
A damp, moldy cigarette.



What Does The Thread Mean?
I dreamt my own work.
I made it afterwards.

Cannibalism.
A human being.
A moral entity?

An artist of the word.
Part of a strategy.
A provocative metaphor,
Of consumption.

Describe relationships,
Power and influence.
Connect psychoanalytic theories,
To counter culture.

Re-enact what one might ask.
A group of ten.
Six on the floor.
Form a tight circle.
Thread their mouths and eyes closed.



Dead While Alive
Anti-social feelings,
And discontent.

He saw unhappiness as,
Limited happiness.
A perception tragically estimated.

Found dead in the asylum.
The cause of death was technical.
An autopsy disclosed:
Foot holding shoe.
A lethal dose.


Counterfeit Lucidity
Your interest in my lack of interest.
The diagnosis fascinates you.

You suggest I attempt lucidity.
The verses present my diagnosis.

Poetry and the literary world,
Mean nothing to me.
Nothing which compels me.

The verses I know.
Suicidal because of humanistic concern.
To remain undead and dream.
But not to have been born.

It is in the verse,
Listen.


Exactly As It Stands
The offer you extend,
Printing and fictionalizing my name.

Why revise?
My unholy brain.
The poems imperfect,
Disordered lines.

I paint to paint.
Every brushstroke imperfect.
I refuse to normalize.


Couldn't Identify The Scent
Her name was God.
My name is God.
You like that,
I can see.

Lick there now.
Swallowed,
A gram of cocaine.

The compulsion to,
Every day.
Sinuses congested.

To Go Or Not To Gogh

If you are contemplating whether or not to see the Van Gogh exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, my suggestion is to Gogh. Yes, the exhibition is timed entry due to very large crowds, but it's well worth the wait.

I went during the free Friday evening hours (4-8pm), when lines are the longest. The line to get into the museum extended from 53rd street all the way around the block onto 54th street. However, at 4:00pm the line moves steadily, and it took about 30 minutes. I was probably a quarter mile back in the line, so don't let the length of the line deter you from going. Along with your museum entrance ticket, you get a separate ticket for the Van Gogh exhibition with an entry time. Mine was 6:30pm, so figure 2 hours later from the time you enter the museum. You can see the rest of the museum and just show up at the exhibition entrance when it's your time to go in. I even arrived 15 minutes early and went straight in.

It's probably a once in a life time opportunity to see this collection of artwork. The exhibition is titled "The Colors of The Night", and is a compilation of paintings done during the evening hours. Some are day scene paintings, so he was doing them partly by memory rather than entirely en plein air.

"The Starry Night" might be his most famous painting, but the largest crowd was around "The Starry Night Over the Rhone". It's the highlight of the show.

"The Starry Night" - 1889



"The Starry Night Over The Rhone" - 1888



While you are waiting for Van Gogh, visit the Joan Miro - Painting and Anti-Painting exhibition on the top floor. It's a collection of experimental works from 1927 - 1937. The series includes paintings on unprimed canvas, paintings on cardboard, collage & sculpture, small paintings on masonite & copper, pastel works on paper, and many more.



Museum Info:
Museum of Modern Art - www.moma.org
Free Fridays: Every Friday from 4:00 - 8:00pm


Van Gogh Exhibition - Thru January 5, 2009
Joan Miro Exhibition - Thru January 12, 2009