I've been having fun photographing drawings, and them digital manipulating them to make interesting patterns. Here are a couple I made recently.
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I'd just like to thank the wonderful folks @openartsforum, especially Raymond Huffman, for supporting my poetry by publishing it on their site. Currently, I have one poem that was featured on the main page, and soon I will have another. I've included a link below. They also feature some stellar visual artists. They have a bunch of themed forums, so if you're a writer, you can workshop pieces in the workshop section. Currently, it's slow, but the more people visit, the more active it will become.
I've added a link in the sidebar to their site.
Open Arts Forum | Underwaterworld This is the latest poem they've published of mine. There are other wonderful poets associated with the site. Have a look!
This is a drawing by Cecile Carriere, an artist from Paris, who I collaborated with in 2007. I wrote poems in response to her drawings, mostly in English, but I tried a few clumsy ones in French that she gracefully edited as well. I showed someone in the arts scene here in Toronto her drawings, and they dismissed her as an Egon Schiele wannabe. That hurt my feelings on her behalf, to be honest. Her drawings really speak to me. Perhaps it's because she has a knack for fluid lines, whereas in my drawings, lines are either straight or rounded. I often admire what is beyond my reach as an artist the most.
This particular drawing never ceases to astonish me. At first glance, all you see is a strange figure in different phases of movement simultaneously. But as you glance at it, there emerge four distinct postures, that seem static in themselves, but when combined give a pleasing sense of movement, almost of dance. You see a person jumping, with knees slightly bent; you see a person standing on one foot (although no ground is indicated), and leaning slightly backward, as if they are losing their balance and about to fall. The combination of implied clumsiness of this figure, and the graceful dance aspect create a wonderful sense of tension and contrast that impels you to fasten your eyes on it for longer. Also, you see a person in the upper left quadrant kneeling and crouched over, and looking curiously at . . . the figures that are jumping, or leaning backward. This suggests the bare bones of narrative. Finally, if you focus on the upper right quadrant, the jumping figure becomes a kneeling figure, but unbent over, again suggesting a different set of movements than the lower half of the drawing, from kneeling crouched over to kneeling and upright. This figure has their arm bent over their head, as if they are scratching their back. The decision to leave out a "ground" creates this ambiguity that lends itself to different movements, and ultimately to narrative. A wonderful complexity emerges from the deceptive simplicity of this drawing that demands more than a glance. Bravo Cecile!!!!
An ill-omened book
The deckled edges of the book
from whence you had just taken a look
a grimoire of antiquity
painstaking iniquity
emblazoned on every page,
a most dishonoured book
settling into someone’s neurons
and the delicate propinquity
of the possibility of oppositional
readings of the chef of horrors who cooks
insurance claims, books,
and the sickled-sins-of-the-father;
a storehouse of horrors
hiding in the larder, beside the bother-
some kidney beans, pressing against the can
of peas and corn, granola bars; a vial of sand
beside the basil oil, resting all over the land
beyond the back wall stove stand
tall and firm among the cloven hooves in quicksand
Down in the silo
the grains jostle, and a rat snake
seeks the mice therein
attracted by the sandy wheat
piled many times the height of a tall man
out the stray grains to sweep
and use all the fruitilities of the hand
back home on crazy street, the heat-lamps
warm hot dogs and sausage,
the smell of meat assaults the sand-wich
a wasp of a witch, a which way to go situation
the cross-roads of the hostile takeover of creation
the ointment rubbed on the broomstick
An unguent of the ages
A tool of the sages, absorbed through
a mucus membrane
hallucinations forthwith, henbane
belladonna, a full moon on all hallows eve,
hemlock potluck, liberty cap mushrooms,
the sensation of shape-shifting
at the time of the lunar eclipse, drifting
on a wave of doom as soon
as the gloom lifted, a mist swiftly
enveloped the clearing,
feeling like you’re flying above your body,
then an electricity-like transmission
of the self through time-space
wearing the black cap of the were-cat
graymalkin, jumpin’ jehosephat
appear capped in the cemetary
that doubles as an arboretum, carry
the alms in a blanket made of elk-skin
parchment with skeltonics, burnt around the edges
sedges under siege from the flames
miles away the earth shakes mildly,
as powerful spirits are conjured, wildly
dancing in a circle with shadows running long
from the campfire, rehearsed well and singing songs
listening to the profundities
of a different era read aloud