1967

On a sunny day
going up to see the sky
How I love my swing

I don’t mean to pick a fight with Eliot
 I just wasn’t sure that the discussion was over. 

This Gloucester Game of Nests continues season after season 
and Yes, 
the Gulls are still on top 
But there are plenty of other characters. 

 Last season the ravens came 
And planted a nest in a downtown neighborhood of gulls. 

The Gulls weren’t pleased 
and it It wasn’t long for violence to break out, 
and I have proof. 

Long story short, we don’t know what happened to the ravens and their protégée 
The gulls remained nested in place. 

 Its tough to tell the crows from the ravens 
But the crows do seem murderous
 traveling in irritating packs 
They can dominate for awhile
But then there gone, 
returning to where? 

 The smaller birds don’t challenge the Gulls 
But their tough in there own way.
 Sparrows, sparrows, sparrows 
as Eliot said their flocks are numerous and widespread. 

Persistent, focused, they have their good days
But to be small in a Gale force wind 
Battered while grasping a twig, holding on 
Perhaps not toughness, 
fortitude 

In Covid time when deciding which art to imitate 
Of course for me it was certainly about place 
But when asked I would tell you “I know what I like”. 

But discovery knows no boundaries. 
I’m not sure if my likes have changed 
But I’m more willing to say I like everything. 

In Covid Time, yes still in Covid Time 
The tension on the string of life reverberates. 
One asks “What ya doing?” 
I reply “Another day”. 
observing.  

Theresa Bernstein suggested
that artists who answer Gloucester’s call 
Remain to record the residue
Of the pioneers. 

 I agree, but suggest the residue is not only paint.
They are words.
 They are sounds.
 They are performances. 

And forgive me If I’m wrong 
But I believe that the pioneers 
Would ask artists who answer the call 
to make some residue of their own. 

“Fellow artist?” I ask. 
If you say “no” 
I  think you are mistaken. 

There are many different artistries to life 
Perhaps you haven’t yet discovered yours. 

In Covid time, one has little to do but to observe.
For me, the sparrows at the backyard feeder. 
and their capture on paper became an obsession. 


In Covid Time the sketching of birds
led to the sketching of place. 
Charcoal to watercolor, to acrylic, to oil. 
Daily practice became an obsession as well. 
Soon , the work of the moment became the daily narrative.. 

In Covid time when deciding which art to imitate 
Of course for me it was certainly about place 
But when asked I would tell you “I know what I like”. 

But discovery knows no boundaries. 
I’m not sure if my likes have changed 
But I’m more willing to say I like everything. 

In Covid Time, yes still in Covid Time 
The tension on the string of life reverberates. 
One asks “What ya doing?” 
I reply “Another day”. 
observing.  

A Poet’s paint is of course their words. 
Words, like paint, come in different hues. 
Some shine bright like a diamond 
some dank and grim. 
But it is not just the words, its how they are applied
the brush skills of Poetry. 
Rhythms, yes. Rhymes, perhaps 
but with Expression, Compassion and Invention
in every line and stroke 
purpose and meaning are left reflected 
on the canvas and the page
but you need to know when to walk away 
and just let it dry. 

When I met the artist in me 
The first thing they did 
was demand that the poet be released as well. 

Nurture and practice 
and the words like the paint 
squeezed from their tubes 
are once again  left
starkly on the page.  

There is a strange sensation 
When I try to paint a copy of a historic painting 
Trying to catch the vision of the original artist 

Its not in the brush strokes 
There, I’m on my own. 
The frequent miscues and off shades 
dry on the canvas is a testament 

Its somehow in the experience. 
I don’t dare say that I’m feeling it like they did 
But there are moments when I feel connection
 perhaps not as Soul mates but as Kindred Spirits .

 They urge me to tarry in the moment 
As time goes gushing by.   

In Covid Time, I noticed that my mind while painting
 was just like my mind when poeting. 

A slight disconnect from the moment, 
warmth, contemplation, and then expression.   

Mardsen Hartley in his “Salutations to a Mouse” 
Tells of how a mouse made a nest of his written words. 

He was flattered 
And didn’t expect that his words would be such worth against the cold. 

Sometimes I think the only thing
Protecting us from that cold Is expression itself.   

Life, at least for this human Is expressed in colors. 
Collections of these colors and their shapes 
Are the structures of concepts 
and corresponding objects of which I Interact. 

Using these colors and shapes 
Or with words and sounds
 we may recreate, god like, the past the present and the future .

Dreamt I was painting.
 I tend not to remember my dreams. 
But I was seeing shapes 
Seeing colors  
Seeing shapes.
Not a word was spoken. 

In College I got the opportunity to meet Ginsberg 
And I asked sophomorically for his  autograph. 
He obliged quoting William Carlos Williams first. 
I misremember it as “no meaning without words” 
And I marveled that in painting I was creating meaning Without words. 

 The actual quote was “No ideas but in things”. 
And I marveled that the things I create on the canvas 
Are ideas. 
And so are the words I put on the page. 

Diderot, yes Diderot, once said 
that “poetry must have something barbaric in it". 

I prefer the term primal. 

Artistic expression is a primal urge.
One that can discovered by any one. 

The Canvas, the page, the stage it matters not. 

Vera Andrus spoke of sea dust. 
What she said artists called the drifts of loveliness 
that scalloped the sand of Cape Ann.

It made me chuckle. 
I’m seeing sea dust everywhere. 
Let me capture it in the light. 

When I stare at a painting I’ve done
 I literally and figuratively can say I can go back in time.  
I can think back to when I did the painting 
And I feel I’m also brought back  to the original artists moment as well. 

Sometimes it’s move that to the left.
Sometimes its the colors are all wrong .
And sometimes Its a captured moment of beauty In time.  

There’s a moment when I Paint 
When I resolve to let it dry. 
I don’t feel that when I’m writing a poem 
Though I often should. 
Working and reworking can fade what’s there out of existence. 
What makes that resolution ? 
An Eye  
A Ear. 
A smell,  a taste,  a feeling? 

I felt another odd sensation today 
A convenient day off from work. 
In my mind the eyes and determination for
The  beginning of a book 
In passing I glance at a canvas 
Torn, for a moment
 I sit and write a poem. 

From the outside in 
or From the inside out. 
I discovered there are different ways 
To construct a painting. 

I wonder if I can do the same In a poem?

When I neared three hundred paintings
 A thought occurred. 
Had I written three hundred poems? 
My quick guess was yes 
and an anthology  is long past due.

But the question and obsession with practice is the real question 
I have bemoaned in recent days  
about how I long
 for a writing practice 
With the same regularity and production of my brushstrokes. 

Information Technology, 
gathers a new understanding with the advent of A.I..
 No longer just, computers and the web 
It’s now  we have a technology to gain and create Information. 

 So what information shall we gather
 and what shall we do with it? 

What should we find out about?
What do I need to Know? 
What do I make with it?  
Who do I tell? 

 Answers at our fingertips 
Creativity too
Can we go deeper 

Colors to the painter
 are like words to the poet. 
Picking the right one 
Giving it the right shape
Where does it fit? 
On the canvas. 
On the page. 

Construction is a process.
Building mistakes can be made. 
Reworked in the edits. 

 It’s time to let it dry!