Consider these, then, notes for a series of unwritten poems.
Premise: The Wizard of Oz is exhausted from pulling on the bellows, monitoring the entire nation, injecting magic into the world and, ultimately, getting Dorothy back to Kansas. Being an energetic genius is hard work, and he is weary. Dropping back into his well-worn leather chair, he drifts off into a dream of you.
Premise: A land parched for years, so dry that no life appears possible. Sun-baked, the desert shows nothing but death, no, beyond-death, a place so lifeless that even the memory of conscious movement is gone. Unbidden, a small translucent cloud moves across the horizon, stopping above the least hospitable part. Barely one shade removed from transparency, the cloud lets light through, but not sunbeams themselves. Rain drops appear beneath the cloud, the moisture sucked up by the need below. Life, long gone, reappears.
Premise: A stand of trees. Between them running into a bright green forest, a long line of doorways, each one different from the last, some large, some round, some nailed shut, some made of paper, some of stone, some of glass, some of wood. A guard, armed but beautiful, directs all visitors away alternating between claiming no doorways exist, explaining the doors don’t open or opening fire to protect the doors.
A stranger, neither tall nor short, handsome nor ugly, approaches the guard and listens to her explanations. He stays next to her. Although she keeps her gun aimed at his mid-section, she does not shoot. He looks into her eyes, she looks away, then back, then away again.
He asks her why.
Why what, she says.
Why do you guard?
I guard the doors.
From what?
Intruders.
Her weapon slowly points to the ground.
How is your hearing?
My hearing?
Could it be that you misheard your orders?
My orders?
Your orders to guard.
Could it be the order was to guide and not to guard? And could you be my guide?
She slings her weapon and reaches out her hand.
Premise: Notes on Liberty House
In speaking of “group” and “community” and “process,”
I find me editing my words,
removing the theological terms:
Covenant, Chosen, Love, Sacrifice,
even Spirit
and,
god forbid,
God.
Yet,
in examining a church or other religious institution,
I am drawn to the words of sociology
“mass delusion,” “emotional needs met” and “belief systems.”
One wonders why the language of
geology never slips into biology,
geography into biography
or
necrology into gynecology.
One wonders but can never know.
Premise: Weight controls him. Not weight itself, but its measurement. Each day he records, to the ounce, the numbers on his scale. As his weight goes up, he feels joy—he does need to gain weight for medical reasons—tempered by guilt and shame. Imagine an Almond Joy bar with Drano-laced coconut. When his weight goes down, he feels disappointment overpowered by pride. Imagine a skull-and-crossbones imprinted brownie.
Pus Theory (a joyful dirge)
You just wait for the pressure to build up, you just wait for the build-up to blow,
Then what you spew out of your mouth, mind, or hand can be called a piece of art you know.
Whatever pops into your mind and plops out on a page
Artistically represents your joy, sorrow, loss and rage.
Art is art when an artist has found it,
Take a blank wall, put a frame around it
Don’t waste time trying to master your craft
Just set sail on the ocean of art with your ego as your only life raft
You don’t have to be that clever, you don’t have to have much soul
Jackson Pollock didn’t know what he’d get when he poured that paint out of a bowl.
You don’t have to study your craft, you don’t have to be that clever
When you subscribe to the pus theory of artistic endeavor.
Art is art when an artist has found it,
Take a blank wall, put a frame around it
Don’t waste time trying to master your craft
Just set sail on the ocean of art with your ego as your only life raft
Artists of a feather gotta hang together so they won’t hang separately,
Vision is a tired anachronism; you want marketability
Money is really what matters; vision is really quite garish
Never mind what the Bible says; it’s without mammon that people perish
Art is art when an artist has found it,
Take a blank wall, put a frame around it
Don’t waste time trying to master your craft
Just set sail on the ocean of art with your ego as your only life raft
Tiny White Box--Thoughts on Life, Death, Recovery, and Other Mundane Topics 