Sufis said: "Nothing is ours but what we can save in a shipwreck" Would that we could gather all we desire we would become ever larger gigantic snowballs heading toward the fate of all gigantic snowballs My life needs fewer not more things to carry off during that final shipwreck Better to carry these things in my head They may seem heavy but are no more than bits of electricity

Pretending to Write It looks like I’m writing, but I’m only pretending. My mind is elsewhere, dealing with more important and pressing things. For instance I am cooking. Now I’m eating. At this moment I am cleaning up instead of sitting down and hammering out the words. Once the cleaning is finished another significant distraction will fill the time I might have better used for writing. So it goes. I am sweeping the floor, brushing the dog, milking the cat. Oh, I meant giving milk to the cat. Pouring a shallow bowl of milk for the cat. What? She’s not lapping it up? She sits there looking at me like I’m stupid. She’s looking right through me, telling me that only in cartoons do cats drink milk. Why am I pouring milk for her? Am I just wasting time? The dog comes over and sucks the bowl dry. When it reaches his stomach I will have more to clean up. I am online researching why adult cats shouldn’t be fed milk. I’m pretending to write. I’m really doing something...

I Like What You Are Going to Say This is not to say that I liked or did not like what you have already said. No, and it doesn’t matter if your words were true or false, whether you treasure them or abhor them. The words you have spoken or written are in the past now. If you brought them up again you’d be repeating yourself. Even if they were new to me they would be old to you. Why not move on? Let’s be forward thinking. Oh, and be positive, while we’re at it. Let’s speak of the future and be optimistic. Willful projection, that’s the ticket! Create with words your coming experience. Some like to use the phrase, visualize. Visualize your outcome as benign. Shape your words, like a sculptor’s hands forming a thing of beauty that was within the stone or clay, waiting to be birthed and beautiful. What you say next is what I have been waiting to hear. I already like what you are going to say.

He Calls Her “Sweety-Pie” (a cloud poem for Henry Darger) Diving into and through the paper She passes easily between the fibers and is already there, on the other side of the paper waiting for me Again, she sinks through the surface to the other side, chasing a cloud chasing the wind. She calls the wind by it’s name He calls the wind by her name He calls her “Sweety-Pie”

The Cave and the Tangled Wires You May Quote Me: "A clean studio is a sign of boredom." As you have not been in my studio, I thought it might be worth explaining a little about the environment in which I create. I have three studios, the papermill in a warehouse, the stand alone brick carriage house, and the cave-like etching studio in a cul de sac in the basement. I call it the cave. This is where I work. Even the long gone dog was afraid to travel the dark corridor to enter the studio. Lucy, the cat, loved the quiet and sat on a stool as I worked. She was from time-to-time a muse. My cave is below ground with a small window open on the side garden. Although the dog wouldn't follow me into the cave, she would sit amongst the flowers and watch through the window. The interior walls of the cave are white stucco over brick. On the eastern wall beyond my etching press are three notable elements, two of which you can see in the accompanying photo. The one...

Guillaume Apollinaire’s Bust The bust of Guillaume Apollinaire greets those who walk into this vest pocket parc that cuddles up against Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Russian emigres chatter on the bench next to mine. The back of Apollinaire’s head looks like a baked potato. One does not make vodka from baked potatoes. The Russians take another drink and I can tell the subject has changed, softened. They toss bread to the birds and the man who is doing most of the talking turns to one woman and speaks in English: "You are a tough old lady a tough old girl" I look back at the potato head

The Dancing Washing Machine The washing machine was agitated, or rather shaking violently, rocking erratically during the spin cycle. It waltzed itself across the laundry room and wedged the door closed. No one was getting in. The machine had left the door ajar just enough so the human could see that this was deliberate. What we had here was a very upset laundry appliance, perhaps over worked and under appreciated. It seemingly mustered its energy into an act of defiance, not realizing that blocking out the human who dumped dirty clothing into its orifice negated its reason for existence. The human was prevented from entering. No amount of pushing against the door succeeded in opening the door. There was no way to pry the door unshut. The human thought of desperate measures, such as getting a chain saw and cutting through the door, climbing through the hole and man handling the bulky machine out of the way. It would mean finding someone with a chainsaw and buying a replacement ...

Your Apartment Building Inside you is a towering apartment building. There is always room for everyone. Everyone you know lives here. Everyone you have ever met lives here. No one dies or moves out. But some are forgotten.

The Fish Bicycle ”A Woman Needs a Man like a Fish Needs a Bicycle” I saw this message on every self-respecting woman’s refrigerator a long time ago. Sometimes it was handwritten on a notecard and taped to the appliance. I know it was also popular as a refrigerator magnet. The fish + bicycle has been around a very long time. Yet long before I saw the magnet I read and listened to John Cage’s Zen koans about monks (men) and women. Amusing myself, I conflated the well-known refrigerator magnet with one of Cage’s short pieces for my own delight. Perhaps you may find these too silly, annoying, goofy, dumb, or possibly fun. I mashed them together and let the pieces fall as they may. Listen to Cage’s voice: “Kwang-tse points out that a beautiful woman who gives pleasure to men serves only to frighten the fish when she jumps in the water.” ...and now my vandalism: A beautiful fish which gives pleasure to fishermen serves only to frighten the bicycle Whe...

Ah, That Girl with Wings I climb the stairs with what always seems like thousands of tourists wanting to see that painted girl who smiles They look for signs or ask guards and they search, only to stand in line for a short glance. I ascend the long wide staircase, the girl with the wings waits at the top, on the stone prow of her ancient ship where she has alighted to signify victory. She greets me and I know where I am From here I take a left and climb more stairs Then enter the gallery of massive canvases Gigantic Engines of Color My personal mission being to view Delacroix's freshly sparkling " Death of Sardanapalus", hence the detail.

The Other Side of the Road Too much of the time And far too frequently My feelings are the squirrel Who tried unsuccessfully To make it to the Other side of the road

How to Draw a Chair The flint pathways of the Jardin du Luxembourg provide a seemingly endless drawing surface for the numerous chairs which abound in the park. This is a superb place in which to learn how to draw a chair. The chairs are all painted the same pea greenish color. There are several types, some with arm rests, some designed for sunning or napping, all are constructed of hollow metal tubing with slats to sit upon. These slats while not designed for this purpose, also collect pigeon poop. The chairs make delightful drawing gadgets. Unlike a pen or pencil that deposits a single line upon paper, the chairs may make four marks simultaneously with their four legs on the “sketchbook” of the flinty paths. One can draw, aka “drag” a chair with one or both hands, most frequently grasping the back rest. One should avoid lifting a chair to reposition it, one should always drag these chairs to incise or “plow” grooves, cut furrows, into the dust of the path. While drawing ...

It is True, What John Cage Said John Cage said that that there is no reason to wait for inspiration. There is no time for it. Writers write, painters paint, and composers compose because that is what they do, it is who they are. It is what we do. Unwind, relax as seven paintings, each fifteen feet wide, ever so slowly reveal themselves.

In Praise of Ephemeral Glory There is a simple, and unpoetic I suppose, answer to why the first of my Geometric Kimono Suite was named A Morning Glory . No one has asked, perhaps because the flat disks do not look much like Ipomea purpurea, the common morning glory. The inspiration is that growing up the flowers I most admired were both blue. One could be gathered and brought indoors, Centaurea cyanus, the bachelor button, also called cornflower. They were humble flowers found even in vacant lots. I would often gather a fistful of bachelor buttons to present to my mother who would arrange them in an empty milk bottle. The little blue flowers looked lovely, lasting for days. My other favorite, the brilliant blue morning glories, could not be put into a vase. They had no stems. The cornflower and the morning glory are beautiful, simple flowers, but represented opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to fragility. As an adult I grew both flowers near my studio, how coul...

Where Do You Find Your Muse? For me, a muse is a bang on the ear that dumps fermented apple juice into my brain. Or, if not apple juice, dopamine buzzing like a bad ballast in a flickering fluorescent lamp. In this simile, the urge to paint or write are triggered not by furrowing my brow in deep thought, but by that promise or inkling of a hormone rush that is evoked by an uncommon event. That event may manifest itself through any of my senses. A smell or sound can suggest more than hunger or a desire to dance. I have been disarmed by smiles and frowns, scowls and sighs, or a cluster of startling words, often misread. The beauty of inspiration is that it pumps a taste of the pleasure reward directly into the brain, and a flood of it after the act of creation. Now, there is where the similarity to sexual stimulation and the blessing of orgasm make the comparison credible and not judgmental. I find muses everywhere, or maybe not everywhere, but I have learned to pay attentio...

That Which Lasts a Day Sometimes the ephemeral is the truest reflection of life Everything is fleeting when you think about it Celebrate beauty while you can

Something Andy Warhol Said I spent my fifteen minutes on handmade paper kimonos and fans shown at galleries run by men who would fall in the first round of a new and deadly affliction. Other galleries also shut their doors long ago, for other reasons. So, my quarter hour slipped away, as it does any way, leaving ghosts of the handmade paper kimonos and fans in the odd museum or on eBay. The art, in small letters, remains in drawers, as old VHS tapes upon a closet shelf. I am transferring my tapes to the Cloud and onto large old-fashioned canvas. Perhaps some curious curator will open a drawer at the Met, or Brooklyn Museum, where my prints snore. There is no iron clad rule that we get but one fifteen minute time slot. It was only something Andy Warhol put into words in 1968.

The Three Muses of Poetry Sometimes he sits quite motionless Blankly pensive trancelike And yet nothing happens Or too much comes all at once And there is no bucket large enough To catch it all In either case, he can always Blame the Muses of Poetry He draws a blank on their names But the really good muse of poetry Carries the attribute of a lyre Which hints at the reciting of poems Rather than their reading Flat on a page in a book The muse of erotic poetry Also carries a lyre, but bigger And more erect This muse and he have fun The muse of short poems hides Behind trees and carries a cell phone Years back she carried a boom box Today there is a shortage of Real authentic muses Or possibly a glut Still nothing interesting Sexy or humorous is destined To be written down this day It was the muse of painting That had him by the balls Again this morning ...

Wood Butcher I butcher words with all the flare and thoughtlessness of a concrete worker setting wooden forms slathered with steric acid, release goo that separates the wood from the concrete as it mutates chemically from a fluid to a solid. My father was a carpenter whose skill spanned the spectrum of activities of that class of worker who builds forms for the foundation of an ice arena to cutting dovetail joints for jewelry boxes made from a hickory tree he’d harvested. His collection of saws and hammers were never displayed on pegboard like trophies or some hobby workshop other dads would vanish into on weekends. Dad’s tools were jumbled in a toolbox he’d made out of scrap lumber. All his tools bore the scars of use and the abuse of being hauled in the back of an old pickup truck on a bare metal bed, bouncing over dirt roads to a job site, which is not to say he didn’t care for them, he just worked the hell out of them. Dad’s hammers made it clear to me as a kid ...