Lunar Halo/Eye Shadow Girl Sketch

New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are coming up but right this second I don’t have anything special planned for the blog.

I feel I should have something special but I don’t. New Year’s Eve this year will be a full moon, and it will be a blue moon—the second full moon of the month. (And as I type this it is very early Wednesday morning, late Tuesday night, and I just took out the garbage and looked up and saw a lunar halo. Lunar halos aren’t rare, but they’re still cool to see. If you extend your arm and spread your fingers your whole hand fits inside the circle which is I think 22 degrees wide. Sometimes you can see colors because it’s really a rainbow but I just saw a white glowing circle this time.) So with all this moon stuff going on I feel I should have something special but I’ve been a slacker and I just don’t have anything special ready.

I might have a guitar video ready to end the year or start the year but I might not.

Mostly I’ve been thinking about graphics lately. I’ve been experimenting with quick sketches. I want to be able to sketch people quickly when I’m in public and I want to be able to sketch a lot of images quickly at home to do simple animation projects.

Next year at the very least I want to do a lot of stories illustrated with colorful, quick sketches.

Here’s one I made today. I did this in about five minutes. It’s a scribble sketch in pencil, scribbled over in black ink ball point pen, scribbled over in inexpensive highlighter makers.

This kind of stuff is fun to do and—if you’re able to get reasonably good at it—can be expressive. I don’t know if I’m the kind of person who can get good at it, but I’m going to try and get better.

Sometimes “better” is good enough.

So I’m sorry I’m not going to have anything special. But I will have something.

Talking Back To Galileo

If she were a telescope—
and she is a telescope
but I’m pretending she’s not—
if she were a telescope
far away things would look close
when I look at them through her.

Some telescopes use lenses.
Some telescopes use mirrors.
Far away things do look close
when I look at them through her
but she doesn’t use lenses
and she doesn’t use mirrors.

I don’t see the Moon through her.
Or the phases of Venus.
Or comets. Or double stars.
I see things like volcanoes,
animals like dinosaurs,
UFOs shaped like donuts.

Without lenses or mirrors
she shows me far away things
up close when I look through her.
I am pretending she’s not
a telescope. I won’t look.
Galileo go to hell.

Wisconsin’s Influence On Art And Technology

Christmas Witches: A Present Of The Past

The red witch said, “The grail stories
are vagina metaphors. Please.

The grail’s round. It receives liquid.
The idea is that avid

worthy knights seeking it will come
to possess a magic kingdom,

either in this world or their heart’s.
It’s a quest that drives all the arts.”

The green witch, silent, just watched me.
I said, “By that thinking we’d see

Bermuda triangle reports
as failed vagina tales of sorts.

It’s a triangle. And it’s wet.
People get very passionate

when things disappear into it.
But the metaphor doesn’t fit

into the vagina pattern
since no great good comes in return.”

The green witch shrugged, tilted her head.
“I’m not sure no good comes,” she said.

“Sometimes,” she said, “myths are cryptic.”
“Something hidden?” I asked. “A trick?”

“Something hidden,” she said, “but seen.
What crafty call the naked queen.”

“Things disappear,” I said, nodding.
“Disappearing, to the plodding,

is a bad thing. But to the wise,
to the crafty ones who despise

this world as a base, corrupt realm,
to vanish means taking the helm

and going to a better place,
with an open heart, a pure face,

the magic kingdom the knights seek.”
The red witch nodded, didn’t speak.

I said, “I never thought this through.
This Bermuda triangle view.

As a vagina metaphor
it could be a grail myth, but for

us modern types, crushed, bored, lost, glum,
looking for a magic kingdom.

I never thought this through before.
This is like opening a door.”

The green witch said, “Cryptic riches
come from intercourse with witches.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


Christmas Witches I Mean Wishes

Christmas Witches I Mean Wishes

I reached into the witch’s hood
and removed a glass that I stood

on a table. A second witch
poured white wine. Each witch had a niche.

“I reached into her hood,” I said,
pointing at the first witch in red.

“You, in green, filled the glass with wine.
I’m thinking the colors are fine.

Christmas witches. I get the look.
And it’s a pun too though that took

me a moment longer to get.
I don’t want to make you upset

but I’m stuck on this metaphor
of reaching in a hood-thing for

a cup-thing. These are grail echoes
and I’m guessing everyone knows

what both the grail and the wine mean.”
The witch in green played out a scene,

using both hands to hold her glass,
raise it, take a sip and then pass

her glass to me. I took a sip.
I said, “If we make the whole trip

around this metaphor, this schtick,
it’s ‘the body and the blood’ trick.

The ‘body’ part means things get wild.”
“We’re witches,” she said. And she smiled.

“Metaphors,” she said, “free the id.”
“I get it,” I said. And I did.

All The Little Drops

All the little drops of water
wash against her when she showers.

All the little drops of rain
wash against the city in a storm.

But even after a storm
with a rainbow glittering
the city is still the city.

All the little drops of water
wash against her when she showers.

All the little drops of tears
wash against his face when he cries.

The colors of the rainbow glittering
are like children outside playing
playing among themselves laughing.

In Kimberly’s Game Vampires Don’t Count