Yes?

Selling the Art

Cult of Personality.

In the Arts. The cult of celebrity. The celebrity gig is gilded, yet we all have to write out our qualifications to prove our value for the great wondrous market, whatever that is. To have some kind of oomph behind our name so people will want to buy our stuff. So people will buy us. "In a comparative analysis, it was proven that you are the best, hence most deserving of food/water/love/housing/electricity/and transportation costs." I'm not a commodity but I play one on the internet! It's getting weird.

And what's real? Holding hands, that feels. Singing a song, that feels. Sharing a gift is exhausting if everyone isn't each sharing a gift. We have to share more so we don't all get tired. Maybe, dear heart, instead of putting love out there and hearing the walloping empty clang of indifference, we should just encourage the sharing of gifts one person at a time. Let's do this together. Your you is completely unique- you must speak. You must paint, we must invent, build, tear down, dream, love, film, sing, laugh, kiss, nap, wink, snuggle, breathe- for us, yeah, for us all.

*

[By the way, while we were eating lunch our garden was bought out and now we have to pay to pick the tomatoes we planted. And apparently we still have to do the weeding.]

I hate it when...

... green vipers pop out of my neck!Not again!

Top o' the head

To be "but a shadow of divine perfection"
is not so small a thing, as you know.
Watch a little seed grow!

We asked the Bird,
How would we begin?

He said,
Higher than eyes is a friend
Clock with no buttons

The silent hand moves you,
& He will move you again.

Together

Hello. Hello, she said.
She a large soft grizzly bear with a bowl of strawberries to offer, her paws with sparkling strings wafting in the wind. "Would you like to sit?"
I was hypnotized, I had to sit.
She said I am Beauty. Would you like some berry?
I was there, I had to have some berry.
And she looked at me, turning herself into a gazelle that drank in clear water, now a heron from a floating pond of lotuses, whom she knew I suppose as she was a golden slippery fish leaping into the heavens' starry sky, shining as the flower lady with bright cheeks, splashing into the water again, asking, would you like to come back tomorrow?
It was the best I'd ever seen. I had to come back.
And in silence she comes.
She comes in silence as I sit awake.
And her armies are just on the other side of the hill.
As if she were a friend, as if there is death in the air
as if the white flag was a little joke meant to amuse her.
Beauty, she said. Beauty is my name. Last night she thrust a spear through my ribs and asked, "Did you feel that?" patting me on the head.
I stare at this red puddle in the ringing silence, cold.
"Oh! I almost forgot, darling. I baked you a cake!"

And in silence He smiles at the door, even more silent than before.

And then out of nowhere...

...springtime babies blink their eyes...

...and a little birdie lands on the painting!

Little Birdie,
you can't just build a nest in the middle of my canvas!Oh.

Well... I guess you can!

Coventry Carol

I was staring at her up on my wall. For a long time.I said, "Sister, why the long face?"

I can't really help it, I've just been sad for a long time.

Well babe you cry whenever you want. But you don't have to.

These are the Days of Miracle and Wonder.
This is my long distance call.