On the Feeding of Parisian Birds Ecoute bien mes petites oisoux Like the cat who does not live with me You cannot count on me to feed you To toss stale bread or offer bowls of water As I am only passing through your life as you Pass through mine If you catch my eye by the way you flutter past And I reward you with a morsel, or don't, That is just the way it is for us both

Big Blue Miracle Machine Clouds, puffs of smoke, Creamer swirling in coffee, Tea leaves in an empty cup, A face in the flames, Visions in a crystal ball. When we catch sight of serendipitous patterns We are looking into a miracle machine. How completely predictable is our world. How completely random is our world. When one defines “miracle” it is usually said To be a once in a million occurrence, The unexpected. Something that shouldn’t happen. Examples cited are usually big miracles, Such as the dead come back to life. Smaller events, such as a snowflake falling In the Sahara, are every bit as miraculous. Take a quarter out of your pocket. Toss it into the air. Probability tells us that it will land On either the "heads" side or the "tails" side. If you flip the coin ten times it is supposed To land on heads five times and tails The other five times. This usually doesn't happen in a small test. But after a few hundre...

Fantasies on a Carnac Theme The Continuity of My Painted Carnac Series While I long ago walked amongst the standing stones in Carnac, it is not these erect boulders that spur me to depict them. It is the underlying concept of the creation of these row upon row of rocks pointing unexpectedly skyward that provokes me to my two dimensional fugue. Sixty-five hundred years ago huge boulders were dug from the earth and dragged some sixty kilometers to the site of modern day Carnac, in Brittany. Upon reaching their destination they were set into the ground in an unnatural manner. Gravity wants stones to fall flat, not point to the heavens. More than three thousand rocks stand in eleven rows. They are known as The Alignments. As with all prehistory, no recorded story exists. How long it took the massive boulders to be set in place is unknown. The task must have lasted generations, massive undertakings of long duration and cultural importance, predating such communal structures a...

The Parson Weems Tale of Helen Frankenthaler You remember Parson Weems Who placed a hatchet In George’s mitt Helen chopped no cherry tree In Central Park I cannot tell a lie Yet took her box of colored chalk Clutched with baby fingers Drawing one line One continuous colored line All the way home On sidewalks and streets From the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum At Fifth and 82nd To the canopy of her Park avenue home At 74th Young Helen scrawled That single line Point six miles long Did her tiny back ache From bending over to draw? Eight skinny NYC blocks 82nd street along Fifth avenue To 74th where she made a right angle Then two lengthy blocks between Fifth across Madison And ending at Park avenue Would her parents have asked Where her new box Of chalk had gone? Parson Weems might tell us She used one piece of chalk Or the entire box But anyone who has used chalk On a sidewalk would know This tale is chalk poetry .......

Some Frown Upon My Stories Some dislike my stories Yet they admire my paintings Others look away from my visual art And prefer the words Rarely do others appreciate both The word jumbles and the colored splotches There surely is a numberless gang that Cannot stand anything I do Still, far and away are those countless beings Whom I have shared nothing with While he is appreciative of neither My cat likes being petted But, nobody doesn't like Sara Lee...

Dead Folk Talking About Painting Long dead and recently gone painters wave to me as I walk through galleries in this city each wanting to say something Their messages enter my eyes and I take from them what strikes me and always it goes into my pocket for future reference I look and in a sense listen with my non-hearing parts and each time note that I might or will make my own reply to these old painters I have just ordered rolls of heavy duck canvas to paint upon, unsized, big ass rolls, the same rough canvas used for sailing ships Perhaps one might in this century be painting on some aerospace fiber or on the air itself It might seem so old fashioned to consider applying ideas to unfurled cotton, as if painting on cave walls Yet, I ordered, via the internet, the thickest and widest roll of cotton duck as tactile and substantial as canvas can be and yes, it had been years since I rolled out a painting surface beneath my feet on the concrete wareh...

In the Back of the Local Pottery Barn His latest one-man exhibition was held in the rather large storage room of the local Pottery Barn. Refreshments were served during the opening. Lunchables and boxed wine were available at cost, in the alley, as the Pottery Barn had no liquor license. The Drawings and collages he had created were produced directly upon the kraft cartons circling the room, floor to ceiling. All sides of the cardboard boxes, not only those facing the center of the room, had been decorated, marked, painted, or drawn upon. Perhaps the number of boxes was more than a hundred. No attempt was made to obscure the lettering: MADE IN CHINA. The cartons were not empty, but heavy. Inside these decorated cartons remained the articles, goods, and saleable wares. Black stenciled labels indicated the contents. I picked up several boxes and peeked at the drawings on the underside. The value of each artwork included the cost of the enclosed products, at retail price...