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

Smart Ass College Boy My Dad often shows up in my dreams with one thing or another in his hands. Usually it is in two parts or broken. For instance he had a three legged cat under one arm and in his other hand he showed me the forth leg. I think that dreams* are supposed to be a way to work through things that seem to have no resolution in the daylight world. My father had a lot of hands-on-experience. He could pretty much do anything with a hunk of wood and a nail. I am the one without practical experience. We had a life-long joke. He’d ask me to do something, for instance, rake the leaves. My stock reply was: “Do you want it done right, or do you want me to do it?” In my dream, he asked me: "what am I supposed to do with this?" , holding the severed leg in my face. "Come on, Dad, do I have to do everything for you?" I told him to hold the cat on its back and give me the other leg. He looked perplexed, so did the cat. I screwed the...

The Ordinary, Normal, Unexceptional Tale of the Smudge Knee Princess Illustrated by Giselle Restrepo Her only distinguishing features were her dirty kneecaps, a result of crawling around in the dirt and through the underbrush. Other than that she looked average and normal. During her play, she scampered on her knees over and through mud, skunk cabbage, blackberry bramble, ferns, and jack in the pulpits. Despite wearing a heavy, mud colored, canvas jump suit when she went to play, the muck and plant material seeped through the thick fabric onto her skin. When she changed from her play clothes, she always discovered: a mark that resembled a bent potato on her right knee and on her left an unmistakable diamond shape; albeit a smudged one. A good scrubbing with soap and water would temporarily remove them, but they'd return as soon as she crawled in or out of her burrow. She adored playing in the mud, like a little piggy. Her world was truly puddle luscious. Mud w...

Of a Parking Lot Minus Vehicles The cat is in the kitchen nudging the spoon in his bowl to reach that last morsel beneath His moist black nose sparkles the way fresh tar does I hear him still pushing the metal spoon and now the non-sequiturs: Filled cracks in an empty parking lot A jumbled web of shining tar And of visiting Brice Marden’s virgin studio before the floor trembled in fear of paint Written oh so many years ago, after visiting Marden in his then pristine, new studio, before he had done a lick of work. It was a day after visiting Frank Stella's firehouse studio where he showed off his little model of cigar smoke inspired sculpture. Stel...

Alice Neel Said I Reminded Her of a Cat Before they met me people (might) have, thanks to my nickname, leapt to the seemingly logical assumption that since my artwork was wonderful, I was worthy to be a celebrated Woman Artist. Female artists such as Sandy Kinnee, deserve to be admired. I happened to have timed my entrance into the Art World better than M. E. O’Hare, who was a kick ass painter as well as being my aunt. When she was starting out in the 1940s, being a Woman Artist in a tiny gallery world designed for and run primarily by males, was not her choice. She chose the route of taking commissions and painting portraits. Her gender was obscured by her use of her initials. There were many women artists, few were taken seriously, despite the quality of their work. By the time I leapt into the first little puddle in the art world, there was an awareness that all along women had been making art and it was damn well time they be taken seriously. Women artists w...