Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Purple Words: Garden Of My Dreams



Garden Of My Dreams


Whenever my heart would wander
the garden of my dreams falls on the wood.
The Plants seem a distant veil,
The Phantom Willow boughs a cloak and hood.
Under Ben trees, the Woodland Tweezers
play their game of Go in their positioning;
The Tirillus Silvador keep away the llamas
with their peculiar whistling; behind which towers
The Protorbis: a smallish fungal-looking mesa;
The Lepelara Terristis: spoon-like and Camporana:
fan-like monofoliates spring up like grasses;
The Solea: their vegetable spears stand at the ready;
The Giraluna: Moonflowers with their pearled petals;
The Artesia: living arabesques and curlicues;
A solitary Anaclea Taludensis provides the perfect
illusion of a constant size no matter the distance;
A bed of Orifleurs wait for the touch of flame to set
their seeds adrift along the nonexistent breezes;
The Porquilla: cactus-like with retractable spines;
The Snake-Vines: aptly called Asp-entwined;
The Orchis: orchid-like, vampiric in nature and flight:
The Farwala: tuft-like, hunting with impaling flowers;
The Dark Lotus: with its anesthetic & digestive nectar;
and lastly The Poda: huge Poppy-like pods with toothy
leaves hypnotizing prey with its prodigious floral displays.


All fascinating and all fantastical Botanical Anomalies
grouped together as The Elemental Garden of Oddities:
Alpha Centauri rather than from Earth they were from.
If there were wee beasties here they hid well amidst
this vegetative paradise which seemed hallucinatory
as if generated from Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey
or some Ergot-infested loaf of bread.

---by Purple Mark, 07/28/2012




Purple Prompts:                                                                         

  1. Whenever my heart would wander in Göksu / the garden in my dreams falls on the wood. / At dusk the roses seem a distant veil / the phantom willow boughs a cloak and hood. A.S. Byatt. The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye: Five Fairy Stories. (Random House 1994) Page 151.
  2. Tirillus Silvador, Woodland Tweezers, Protorbis, Solea, Giraluna, Artesia, Anaclea Taludensis are all plants from Parallel Botany Leo Lionni Alfred A. Knopf 1977.
  3. The Orchis are inspired by Jack Flanders: Dreams Of Rio by Thomas M. Lopez, ZBS Foundation 1987.
  4. The Porquilla, Snake-Vine, Orifleurs, Farwala, Dark Lotus and Poda are all from my own fevered imagination.
  5. Philip’s words: fascinating*, elemental*, box car, okra pickle, dour, Alpha Centauri*, Seminole, baby rattle, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey*, roller skates, Deep Purple, wee beasties*, coif, snitzel with noodles.







If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Love Poems Are Horrible


She Looks Lovely Covered in Earth


Does she think of me, O' Swan?
The she who wears a myriad of faces.
O' Swan, she floats when she walks.

Does she get lost in that oblivion of innocence and youthful learnings?
Does she suspect that I have feelings for her?
Swan, she enters my dreams and flutters around like a humming bird.
She wears many masks in between her thoughts
Her song bird voice ping-pongs through the space between my ears.

I wish, O' Swan, that you could turn my body's clock back one decade
But if you did, would I still love her?

---William James, January 18, 2003







If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Monday, July 30, 2012

Love Poems Are Horrible...


What Not to Write in a Love Poem


We're tightly wrapped
our gated breaths overlap
Warm sensations
breed complete relaxation
I am overwhelmed in happiness

A timeless tender kiss
I guard the one in my arms
She, the woman I love
loves me back

Ending never
memories last forever

---March 10, 2003









If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Sunday, July 29, 2012

Love Poems Are Horrible



I Didn't Know I Was Such A Romantic


I can see her

a seed germinates in rich soil

she is round with my child



---William James, February 2, 2007







If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Friday, July 27, 2012

Friday's Children by Afzal Moolla


The Art of Word-Jacking.


'Freedom.'
'Justice.'
'Democracy.'

Three words,
lost to us.

Plundered by the few,
stripped naked and ravaged,
pummeled into submission.

Three words,
taken from us.

Usurped so casually,
stolen and cleaved,
left meaningless.

Three words,
strangled and violated.

No more.

Not today.

Today, we reclaim the ideals,
the billion voices,
all straining to be heard.

Today, we take back our truth,
our collective aspiration,
still yearning for the harvest.

Today, we sing the hymns of freedom,
as we gather at the gates of justice,
while mourning the paralysis of democracy.

'Freedom.'
'Justice.'
'Democracy.'

Three words,
that we shall wrest back.

Three words,
that have nurtured our dreams.

'Freedom.'
'Justice.'
'Democracy.'

Three words,
for which we all have bled.

Three words,
word-jacked and abused,
that are ours once more.

'Freedom.'
'Justice.'
'Democracy.'

Three words,
that shall remain tightly wrapped,
around our collective core.


Copyright © 2012 by Afzal Moolla









If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Thursday, July 26, 2012

Southpark Poem #1: Guess Who This Is?



I've experienced death countless times
Heaven or hell no matter what, I can't die
I wake up in bed wearing the same old clothes

Stan, Cartman: O-kay, mmmm, hmmmm
Yeah, I didn't die. Well, f--k you, too
I've experienced death countless times

Her titties are f--king huge
Oh my god! They killed Cartman!
I wake up in bed wearing the same old clothes

That's it I'm sick of this bull sh--
screw you guys, I'm goin' home
I've experienced death countless times

What the f--k are stem cells?
I don't know, but I got to think of something
I wake up in bed wearing the same old clothes

What the hell? What the f--k is this?
(I'm singing as good as I can!)
I've experienced death countless times
I wake up in bed wearing the same old clothes


---William James; Source: Southpark!









If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words. This I magazine, I promise you will be far superior to this poem.


This one's so bad I'm not going to put a fake name on it


Sorry to hear about your back
Kevin started the restaurant
The runt hunts Easter Eggs
Where are you meeting these days

Kevin started the restaurant
We have been practicing deep breathing
Where are you meeting these days
I got my blood work done today

We have been practicing deep breathing
Take me Pizza the Hut with your cheese dripping salami
I got my blood work done today
I feel like Princess Lea already

Take me Pizza the Hut with your cheese dripping salami
I hope it isn't as buggy as Lion was
I feel like Princess Lea already
Nate and I are headed to Everett poetry night at cafe zippy

I hope it isn't as buggy as Lion was
The runt hunts Easter Eggs
Nate and I are headed to Everett poetry night at cafe zippy
Sorry to hear about your back


Source of Pantoum: Facebook baby, Facebook




If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words. This I magazine, I promise you will be far superior to this poem.


Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Purple Words: Curtains Like A Naive Pretense Of Sleep



Curtains Like A Naive Pretense Of Sleep


As in a play the father fetches pageants out of air,
scenes of the theatre, vistas and blocks of woods
and curtains like a naive pretense of sleep.

His audience was his family and the few neighbors
he has inveigled here to be entertained by his
vigorous words and passionate gestures.

“St. Joseph and Mary the Virgin have lost
their castanets and start to look for the Gypsies
to see if they know where they are.”

“Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly:
he belonged, they did say, to the Witch Melancholy!
Blacker was he than blackest Jet,
Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet.”

His audience baffled by these utterances
wonders if the tale will become clearer as he continues
the strange parade of characters before them.

“When the Lord Lucifer leaves, you will tell
the Lord Yaweh that the Lord Lucifer has changed
his mind and no longer has any need to see him.”

No, they decided with that last remark:
there is no sense to be had of this nonsense
with no connecting thread save his speaking of it.

It was all a cobbled together mish mash
of things which he thought sounded great,
but great though his passion for language was

he had lost his audience who wondered why
he had asked them here for this entertainment,
but maybe he just liked the sound of his own voice.

---Purple Mark 071412




Purple Prompts:                                                                         

  1. The father fetches pageants out of the air, scenes of the theatre, vistas and blocks of woods and curtains like a naive pretense of sleep.” Wallace Stevens. The Palm At The End Of The Mind: Selected Poems And A Play. (Vintage Books 1972) Page 311.
  2. St. Joseph and Mary the virgin have lost their castanets and start looking for the gypsies to see if they know where they are.” Garcia Lorca. The Gypsy Ballads Of Garcia Lorca. Translated by Rolfe Humphries. (Indiana University Press, 1963) Page 50.
  3. Next came a raven, that liked not such folly: he belonged, they did say, to the witch melancholy! Blacker was he than blackest jet, flew low, and his feathers not wet.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge:Laurel Poetry Series. (Dell Publishing, 1959) Page 37.
  4. When the Lord Lucifer leaves, you will tell the Lord Yaweh that the Lord Lucifer has changed his mind, and no longer has any need to see him.” Steven Brust. To Reign In Hell. (Ace Books, 1984) Page 73.








If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.




Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Guest Author: Gerard Erato -- The Translation!



Love is enough...


Do not ask me
Whether are needed seas more pure and more blue than the sky
To feel happy,
The haunting surf and the foam of the waves
Cradling anxious hearts.
And breezes laden with sea spray, salt and algae
To appease the souls.

Love is enough...

Do not ask me
If the gardens rustling of thousand songs of birds
shift away our sadness.
If the song of farmers reaping the harvest
Fills the air of expectations.
And if the slow rise of the forces of life
Provides us his wisdom.

Love is enough...

Do not ask me
If light flooded and flowered houses
Make us laugh harder.
If the pads of silk on plush carpets
Are conducive to silence.
And if required is half-light of large deep beds
To exalt the body.

Love is enough...

Do not ask me
If I'm sad and lonely sitting at my window
And looking far away.
If every evening just eat one by one my days
And shortened my dreams.
And if time passing while keeping a hope
Little by little takes my life.

Love is enough...

Ask me instead
For a hand to grasp, a smile to give
To the unknown who passes by.
The words of a song to the mother
Of this child who is crying.
And my arm to hug the friend i found back.
Ask me to love.

Love is enough...

---Erato le 07/16/2012








If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Guest Author: GĂ©rard Erato -- A Poem in French


L'amour suffit...


Ne me demandez pas
S'il faut des océans aussi bleus que le ciel
Pour se sentir heureux,
Le ressac obsédant et l'écume des vagues
Berçant les coeurs inquiets.
Et des brises chargées d'embruns de sel et d'algues
Pour apaiser les âmes.

L'amour suffit ...

Ne me demandez pas
Si des jardins bruissant de mille chants d'oiseaux
Chassent en nous la tristesse.
Si le chant des fermiers récoltant la moisson
Emplit l'air d'espérances.
Et si le lent essor des forces de la vie
Verse en nous sa sagesse.

L'amour suffit ...

Ne me demandez pas
Si des maisons fleuries inondées de lumière
Nous font rire plus fort.
Si les coussins de soie sur des tapis moelleux
Sont propices au silence.
Et s'il faut la pénombre de grands lits profonds
Pour exalter les corps.

L'amour suffit ...

'amour suffit ...

Ne me demandez pas
Si je suis triste et seul assis Ă  ma fenĂŞtre
A regarder au loin.
Si chaque soir qui vient mange un Ă  un mes jours
Et raccourci mes rĂŞves.
Et si le temps qui passe à espérer encore
Peu Ă  peu prend ma vie.

L'amour suffit ...

Demandez-moi plutĂ´t
Une main Ă  saisir, un sourire Ă  donner
A l'inconnu qui passe.
Les mots d'une chanson à offrir à la mère
De cet enfant qui pleure.
Et mes bras pour étreindre l'ami retrouvé.
Demandez-moi d'aimer.

L'amour suffit ...

Erato le 16/07/2012




Stayed tuned. Later today, the English translation will be released!








If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Monday, July 23, 2012

Guest Author: Valentina Cano -- Dials


Dials


A master at telling time.
That’s what I’ve become.
A being who watched arrows
and blinking lights,
fluorescence sprinkled over words.
Your smiles are seasons,
whole months of weather.
Vibrant with ticking,
they shape my days.
You have become a sundial for me.
I depend on shadows
to show me the truth.

Copyright © 2012 by Valentina Cano







If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Friday, July 20, 2012

Friday's Children by Afzal Moolla


The Elasticity of Love.


Truth. Lies,

in-between,
teeming mindscapes,
arrhythmic heartscapes,
wildly cacophonous soulscapes,

all the while as truth slips through the cracks,
on time's wrinkled face.

How easy it is to sew the heart up,
extinguishing the embers crackling in a soul,
dousing the fires of yearning when memories bubble up.

How hard to euthanise such fickle whispers,
cremating unburnt passages of loose-leaf verse,
delving deep into a core once pure, and now rotten.

Shunning pleas,
ignoring plaintive cries,
sewing up the cocoon,
I want to rest in dead space,

As I,
slip inside private nightmares,
awakening long dormant fears,
eliciting a flood of tears,

Till I,
find that belonging,
that peace,
solace,
not much, merely a trace,

of belonging,
in a far-off inaccessible place.


Copyright © 2012 by Afzal Moolla









If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Purple Words: Her Mission


Her Mission


NiwetĂşkame came to her again:
she must go to a certain place
and prepare for her mission,
the details of which would be
revealed in another vision.

Her life was a quest:
chasing one vision after the next,
blown by the wind of change
across America, no place home,
she was disconnected from
the American Dream
following her own instead.

In her next vision:
the darkness expelled a form,
a wraith, a gray genie of a man
in flowing gray robes who began
a repeated bowing of his head
as he chattered to her eagerly
in a melodic, singsong voice.

Even those wild memories of his
mad youth left him unmoved,
just as during his last debauch,
he had exhausted his quota of
salaciousness and all he had left
was the marvelous gift of being
able to remember it without
bitterness or repentance.


It was all another morsel
of wisdom which though
it seemed to come from outside,
no doubt bubbled up from within
her or maybe it was advice
from the great ocean of the
unconscious to guide her steps
away from that of her latest vision.

---Purple Mark 07/07/2012




Purple Prompts:                                                                         

  1. Then, NiwetĂşkame came to her again, saying that she must go to a certain place and prepare for her mission, the details of which would be revealed to her in another vision.” Tom Robbins. Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. (Bantam Books, 1976) Page 173.
  2. Suddenly the darkness expelled a form, a wraith, a gray genie of a man in flowing gray robes who began a repeated bowing of his head as he chattered to her eagerly in a melodic, singsong voice.” Dorothy Gilman. The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax. (Fawcett Crest, 1966) Page 129.
  3. But even those wild memories of his mad youth left him unmoved. Just as during his last debauch he had exhausted his quota of salaciousness and all he had left was the marvelous gift of being able to remember it without bitterness or repentance.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez. One Hundred Years Of Solitude. (Bard Books, 1970) Page 293.







If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Love Poems Are Horrible And Here's Why



Liberty Now


Opulent diarrhea
oozes out
pigs on parade
in the Emerald City
written like icons
venerating
capital ascendancy
in a dominion
freed
for it

Islamo-fascist
percolate
behind the black Burka
strap on bombs
toy
like pegging women
plumbing the depths
of the Texan baron
the son of John Howland’s
smiling
behind

Power and Industry
dictate
peace – love
blessings – curses
to diminutive people
in that horrid covenant
between them
and the almighty uncle Sam

The US capitulates
its strength
as the iron curtain
muffles
invisible waves
of speech
Lady LIBERTY
gurgles
gasps
rattles
on the pyre
of brotherly love

---William James, 6/16/2007









If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Truly I Say, This Is Disasterpiece



The Law Is Always Just


This evening on my way home from SDW,
tripped over a gigantic pile of horse apples
from a proud downtown mounted cop

That same cop, on First and Union, wrote
a bent old man a ticket
for failing to bag up a steaming pile
of his Cocker Spaniel's crap.

Why doesn't the strong arm of the government
have to clean up its own shit?

---William James, 3/26/2007











If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Monday, July 16, 2012

Love Poems Are Horrible And Here's Why



The Manchester Arms Love Nest


Will she groan
out my name
when it is my turn to fill her?

I rhythmically ejaculated
A word that formed on my lips that
lacked any discernible meaning

—Harder, faster, slower
The girl next door screamed
Through plaster lath walls

I open my ears
and dream of aloneness

---William James, 3/5/2007








If you haven't already, check out Randomly Accessed Poetics first publication: The Texture of Words.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

My Second Poem About Dad (is now a sorrowful confession)



I've noticed, in my relationships with people (excluding children), that when the shit hits the fan, there are no innocent parties.

In (relationship) wars people are not nice, they are not tame, they are not domesticated. People are in fact wild animals.

People may behave in a civil manner in whatever relationship they are engaged in, but underneath that thin veneer a primitive beast lurks. Nobody wants to talk about this. Nobody wants to personally admit the truth of this or apply it personally to them. People want to present themselves to others as angels or sheep without blemish, but this is not reality.

Me, I have a wild animal in my heart. I harbor a lot of resentment in my body. I hold grudges. I am haunted by past wounds and misinterpretations. I do irrational things. I am impulsive. And I have been cruel to people whom I shouldn’t have been unkind too. I am not beyond blame.

In dealing with the sudden death of my father, the veil between the rational and the irrational has worn thin. The veneer of civility has become peppered with holes. And I have uttered things (on 07152012) that never should have escaped my lips.



This whole experience of being the bad brother and son has reminded me of the Robert Service Poem, The Cremation of Sam McGee:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.


Mostly it was the word turmoil, which became moil that reminded me of this poem.

I look forward to the day when the fallout of dad's death settles to the ground. And we who have survived have been able to extract all the radioactivity that has poisoned our flesh so that we can once again be united under the banner of family. Dad often quoted a soviet dictator (whose name escapes me) who wanted to escape the conflict with the west in order to return his people to useful labor.

Yes, dad, we in the family (here still breathing) need to put down our guns, beat them into hoes, and return to useful labor in the garden.




Friday, July 13, 2012

Friday's Children by Afzal Moolla


Ramblin' Bob Dylan Blues.


Why does the sun dry up so many scattered tears
slipping down the coarse cheek of a million hushed fears
where no one is scalded though the searing fog clears
while prayers are mutely spoken even as the end nears

We shatter and scrape on demented knees
Blindly begging for mercy as it silently flees
Searching listlessly for salvation drowned in the breeze
That spits at the soft rose suffocated by a wheeze

I know now what I need never have known
Of hope that was trampled before it had flown
Into a wasted sky filled with hate that could drown
The giggling of the crowd and the crying of the clown

A hope so fragile that its wings were of brittle glass
Ripping the veneer off the sewers of class
Twisting the fabric of the weighed and costed mass
Who numbly waited hoping that it too may pass

For when shards of that hope in all hearts scurries away
To a darkness where crowded night is emptied off the heaving tray
'Tis then when sewn eyes shall behold that doleful day
When all shall tear at each other while on demented knees we still shall pray

For a lifting of the veil of that wilful deceit
That's wrapped up in a flag swollen with conceit
While the limbs splinter in the claw of a winner's defeat
Yet still the drums roll for the ill-fated souls chose never to retreat

From that drenched battle-ground where blood flows through a sieve
And love's lost song plaintively begs for a reprieve
From eternal loss which into raw emotion does cleave
Only to slip through the fingers and like grains of sand, leave

(For Bob Dylan)


Copyright © 2012 by Afzal Moolla





Wednesday, July 11, 2012

I've come along ways since 1994


Excerpt from the First Stuff


     There are many    
     lakes in a sea;    
     there's many lakes in the    
     infinite ocean deep.    

     All are separated    
     by their own will.    
     All are part    
     of the great whole,    
     but being blind,    

     don't even know.    









If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Love Poems Are Horrible And Here's Why


Forever I'll be broken
unable to trust
another with a key to my heart

Forever you'll be fixed
twenty-two in my mind when you left me
at the altar with the brides maids
best man, and a rusty old ring

Forever I'll be lost unable to taste my home
the church is empty, rain drips through cracks in the sky,
and the party has dispersed into a howling wind

Forever I'll be broken
unable to trust again another
with the secrets of my soul

---4/10/1997







Monday, July 9, 2012

Yesterday's Horrors


I fell ten thousand meters one miserable day,


a strange dark encrusted land unfolded on the way.
A lone little hovel set upon "Gilligan's" lost isle
surrounded by thick sticky dark mud and pea grey fog.
Looking into a dreamy light filled window,
a strange sadness enshrouded my soul.
Looking to the crack between a tender door,
seeing a fraction of what I possessed before.
Memories flooded into consciousness,
overflowing I wept with tearless madness.

Questions formed in my dreary little mind
like long drifting shadows on a crisp wintery day:

Who am I?
Why am I alive on this grey day?
Kneeling into the ground grappling for a meager breath.
Do I walk upright across this cursed ground
Or perhaps I amble Ape-like instead?

Loneliness,
Darkness,
Despair

are they the only emotives my heart has to spare?
Tomorrow is a big black hole,
void and dark, just like my soul,
the want of death is the only light I've got to bare.

I once dreamed a dreamy little light.
Danced with it, like a fairy prince,
at the top of a silvery well,
but consigned to hell I am,
this damn darkness is my only friend.

Ashes to Ashes,
Dust to Dust,
cursed are these grounds I have landed upon.


---William James, December 25, 1995











If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.


Sunday, July 8, 2012

Love Poems Are Horrible


His Youth Is In The Past


The Raven has arrived.
All day long he sings,
Show tunes, through
Color-coded shades of pink.

Enter the yellow Dove,
Singing one octave up,
“Arms open wide.”
She sits among the lone lilies.

Being an Autumn Lily,
His glad days have gone to seed.
She knows, he shows
How to admire the birds flying above.

Exit the Lily,
Bearing a golden band set with shinny stones.
The Raven wails through
Deepening layers of syncopated love.

Off flies the yellow Dove.


---William James, May 11, 2001







Friday, July 6, 2012

Friday's Children by Afzal Moolla


Our Fallen


Our fallen
never forgotten
they remain interred
in the conscience of each of us
in our moments of grateful reflection
we honour the memory of them all
for their sacrifice still nourishes
the spirit of us who remained
and so they breathe and live
and laugh and cry within us
never to be forgotten
our fallen
As you remember us today.


Copyright © 2012 by Afzal Moolla




Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Purple Words: Being Vincent Van Gogh


On the day before the Parade:
I fastened the handles on the golden Frame
with great difficulty, gilded the protruding screws,
located and steamed the turquoise velvet outfit,
and found the sunflower brooch.
I had previously grown out the side parts
of my beard out and dyed it orange in order
to be Vincent Van Gogh: a walking painting.

I had thought it would be great if a group of Artists
were to come as either their own artworks
or other famous paintings or sculptures.
We would be an Artwalk where instead of the people walking
by the Art, the Art would walk past the people.

On the day of the Fremont Solstice Parade,
the make-up was truly like oil paint as
I built up the layers into a reasonable
facsimile of Vincent’s self-portrait
with brushes which gunked up,
sponges that disintegrated,
difficulties with hair-sprays
and a bobby pin which despite
the efforts of many people resisted
all attempts to restrain my beard or
remain invisible during my time as
Vincent. At last I had to be satisfied
with my efforts and began my Walk.

I walked downtown and curiously enough
very few people looked my way or even looked
like people trying to get to the Parade,
I chose a number Fifteen bus to Ballard,
(instead of my usual number Seventeen
walk across the bridge along with the throngs)
and walked another mile along the Burke-Gilman
to join the colorful chaos of the staging area.

I found the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
first and then I saw others that I knew
finally my friends with the Emerald City
Social Club that I usually walked with appeared,
but not unsurprisingly none of those
I had invited to be a Work of Art with me.

Margo made me look comparatively tame
in comparison with her Electric Blue body suit
which had 1200 Fluorescent Green earplugs hot-glued
to it in addition to her Fluorescent Pink heels
and two bubble guns, only one of which worked.

She got the majority of attention after we jumped
in following the Phoenix group and before
a Dance & Drum group because we’ve found
that it’s necessary to have good music going
to keep everything moving along pleasantly.

Vincent and I had our admirers among the crowds,
most of which got who or what I was,
though some called me Picasso or Miro
and I had to correct their mistaken impression.
I was repeatedly told that “I had been framed!”
and of course, I got the thing about the ear.

With the Frame, I was able to coax out a few people
from the crowd and be in the picture with me.
This included children as well as adventurous
teens and adults who enjoyed the opportunity
to be part of the action if only briefly.

The handles on the Frame were not so easy
on my hands which cramped-up and the sly brass
numbed my fingertips and even on the next day,
my left index finger remains partially numb
and wasn’t the only consequence of my Parading.

The Fremont Solstice Parade is about two miles long
and by the time my section of it had reached Gasworks,
I was glad I didn’t have to hold up the frame anymore as
my fingertips were now numb and my feet were buzzing
with that peculiar energy which comes from dancing,
standing still for the cameras and just being part
of the whole extravaganza.


As was my Solstice tradition, I walked back along the
Parade route to view those acts which had followed mine.
Then having done my bit to bring in Summer, I left Fremont
and the Fair foregoing the no doubt lengthy
waits for packed buses and began my long walk
home by way of a path next to Lake Union with
the Frame digging its way into my shoulders.

I went through the new-to-me Maritime Park,
past the geese, over a bridge, past a Naval building
now shuttered that I had welcomed one New Years Eve in,
by the Center For Wooden Boats and it’s seemingly
attendant Orange canopies in a Park still in formation.

From there I made my way through the Mercer Mess
up Fairview contemplating finding a meal, but those
places I found along the way were either closed,
uninteresting or nonexistent and I continued on up
that last and steepest stretch: Denny Hill walking
8 ½ miles altogether for the day all in the name of Art.

Then I hung out with friends to give my feet a rest
while they wondered why I didn’t remove my make-up.
Having had nothing to eat except cereal, I planned
to go out one last time to a well deserved dinner as
Vincent Van Gogh complete with my Frame, I chose
Julia’s on Broadway as my spot to hang out at.


Unfortunately, they had no Absinthe with which
to add that touch of verisimilitude at the Green Hour,
so I had a Lemon Drop instead and a pasta dish
to satisfy my appetite and energy needs though
like earlier in the day relatively few even glanced in.

I had learned a few years back to avoid eating the food
at the Fair after having been blessed with Food Poisoning
from improperly made or cooked Crab Cakes which caused me
to projectile vomit and pass out three times each,
I had also learned the futility of eating in a
well-established restaurant there which were packed with
Fremont Fair-Goers and had their own harried staffs.

On the way back from Julia’s, I found a pack of
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence outside of C.C. Attles
where my Frame provided numerous Photo Ops
for everyone who wanted to get into the picture
one last time. I went home and began to bid farewell
to Vincent Van Gogh with cleansing pads and a bath.

---Purple Mark 061612