Waterbug

More just for fun...

Recently, I've been coloring the illustrations I did years ago for a longish poem by dean and adding them to a web page. I've been doing this entirely with electronic media. As a visual artist of the old school, I find this somewhat tedious at times. It seems a lot easier to me to pick up a paintbrush. However, they are "a thing unto themselves" and of interest. I took the original B&W ink drawings and scanned into the computer. Then I converted to vector art and exported as Photoshop native file. THEN I opened in Photoshop and began coloring, using layers so that I could work around the line drawing and not destroy it. Oh oh, I hear the sound of zzzzzz's all around. Here's an example to cheer you up with a link to the poem. I think it's kind of nice!

Pam

Fast Food

Just for fun...
Pam

Rap n talk and thoughts about poetry

Blogger John comments on my
"Dressed for Success?"

with "Poets get paid in a
big way. Inner city poets,
also known as rappers,
get paid HUGE amounts.
Even if you don't like rap music,
... read the lyrics."

John, Some rappers may
get paid in a big way.
Some anything always make it big
leaving millions yearning
for their place in the sun.

Me? I decided early to
create for the joy
but stay out of the garrets.
Should one sacrifice for art?
I don't agree.

Pam

I'm Listening

"I'm listening"
says the radio shrink,
meaning "Hold still --
I'm preparing to pounce."

"I'm listening"
says the angry boss, parent, he-or-she-
to-whom-one-must-explain, meaning,
"Spill it!" meaning "I haven't heard
anything really stupid yet today...".

"I'm listening," says one's spouse,
frowning, meaning, "Talk fast,
while the commercials last -- Oh,
just a second, this one is
funny...".

"I'm LISTENING," says teen to parent,
meaning, "So bore me already!"

"I'm listening," student insists
to teacher, meaning, "Oops,
you almost caught me."

"I'm listening," says the after-school monitor,
meaning "I told you kids to shut up. I know damned well
you're smirking and whispering insulting things about me.
I'll make you wish you hadn't."

"I'm listening," parent says to child,
meaning, "Just tell me your cute stupid joke
already so I can beam and say, 'that's
WONDERFUL, honey!' and get back
to my book/phone conversation/work...".

"I AM listening," one assures
spouse or child, meaning "Of course
I'm not listening! Can't you see
I'm trying to get 20 things done here?"

"I'm listening," the National Security Agency
might tell us if it ever spoke to us
in any voice we'd recognize.

"I'm listening" says our leader, "I'm listening
to you, America, and you've told me that you want
lower taxes, better health coverage and..." --
meaning, thanks to my pollsters, I now know
what I have to tell you I'm giving you while I
give you what you're going to get, whether
you want it or not."

"I'm listening," an angel of God
might tell us, weeping, if ever
an angel spoke to us. (They do try,
but choke on their luminous tears. For they
HAVE been listening to us.
The more they listen, the more
they glisten.)

This poem is for you, Reader,
but not for you to listen to.
If you ever said, "I'm listening,"
I wouldn't know what to think.
I'm just a poet, not your father, teacher,
leader, insistent child, boss. I'm the food
you can toy with (at last!). You don't need
to listen to me. Consider me an amiable noise,
like the warbling of songbirds in the early morning,
singing their love or lust or warnings for each other,
not for you. I'm swapping songs
with playmates. If our music (like birdsong)
creates a dawning space out in the world
that feels safe for waking up into,
conveys through dim shades
the dew-bright new day in which we sing...

but this is getting warbly indeed. Don't
listen to me. (I never do.) We are dreamers.
You dream me. I dream you. We live
in the dreams we dream for each other.
Let the Freudian listen to dreams, stick in
his thumb and pull out a symbolic plumb and say
"What a good shrink am I." We don't listen
to each other's dreams, and most of us
don't listen to birdsongs. We live in them.
Critics and scholars listen to poems
as fans sit in the stands and follow the players
by studying the program. Those of us
who can play, play.

Dean

Dressed for success

CEOs get paid millions
to lie, cheat and steal.
Lawyers are well-paid
to win cases they don't believe in.
Psychiatrists earn hundreds per hour
to put people on drugs.

What is a poet paid?
Is anyone listening?

Pam

Playing for keeps

A great poet once said
we move apart in order to play catch.

I am talking.
Are you listening?

Pam

Playing both of us

You have told me that,
while you are away,
I will need to answer the blog every day,
replying to myself.

Here I am.
Can you hear me?
And what about the rest of you?

Pam

(Hello, anyone among our poet friends
can request to participate in this Blog.
Post on Comments and I'll get he message.)

A message before leaving

Found your message
in my email: "Bye.
And love and all
that goes with it,
as much as can go over e-mail."

You are going on a trip
but how can that be? You
are always with me.
And why do I feel
full of emotion?

Pam

If my head

If my head
were only the space from ear to ear
and I had to somehow
fit ALL OF YOU in here
I'll bet I could.

If you were suddenly million's and millions of you's
like starlings inhabiting trees
in autumn around my house,
filling the air with their cries,
I'd still get you all in my eyes.

If you by yourself
(just you) found a spot
at the end of the world and under a rock
and you stayed there for a long long long time
and didn't come out
and then . . .
you thought of me,
I'll bet I could find you.

Pam
(written in 1994. Still a nice poem)

Rock

Rock, we say, meaning enduring. Rock on, we say, meaning carry on (endure). Rock and roll, we say, and here we don't mean endure so much as move. Rock, Pierre, Peter, Petra, Obdurate, enduring, durable.

Pam