Month: November 2014
-
Frames and Paints
Apropos pickle
Butte barely there in tumbleweed distance
Colloquial circus on edge of town
Drab hard rust
Emergent sea
Fish scale sliver
Glass stippled bass dress
Hercules sleeping like a cat
I don’t know slick
Just relax
Kairos
Let there be dark
Maroon full of water
Noun ironing board
Oh peel up
Preen winged words
Quick thick sailboats pass across a canvas
Red banal rose
Startled pimientos brush along a landscape
Thesis slope mint
U-pick raspberry squeeze
Very faraway pink
White lime yellow summer clouds
X marks tableau vivant spot
Yield sudden silk
Zeus striped sock lint -
At the Beach with Peepa and Moopa
Meet Peepa ‘ and Moopa ‘`
They like to play on the beach
The waves are pipes made from sea foam ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
The lifeguard looks like
?{ Alfred Hitchcock with a pipe ~{
Peepa jumps off the end of El Porto pipe pier ‘~~~
—|—|—|—|—‘`~~~ Moopa jumps kilter and akimbo
|’——–~~~ Peepa runs and dives |——–‘~~~
\~~~~~~’~~~’`~~~ They swim back to shore
In the evening when the sun goes down ~~~,~~~
they sleep on the beach and dream of waves
‘` ‘ \~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~’~ sleepy wave eyes ~’`~
Peepa walks alone down to the water ‘ \ ~~~
Moopa awakes and cries ‘` Peepa, where are you?
Peepa comes running back to Moopa ‘` ‘ \~~~
-
A Cat’s Argument
“Aren’t you hot sitting on that heater vent?”
“Alas, summer so fast has passed.”
“Yawn. Fall curls my tail and bristles my fur. Just yesterday you were complaining of the heat and wondering if summer would never end.”
“Shelley was right: ‘We look before and after and pine for what is not.’”
“I once lived in a basement room paneled in knotty pine.”
“I’ll bet it was not when you finished with it.”
“I rebut that. The finish was sprayed shellac. I used to rub against it a good polish.”
“Why can’t cats live without argument?”
“Who says they can’t? Cite your sources if you’re going to talk to me like that.”
“An old cat’s empirical knowledge.”
“Remember that imperialist cat came into our yard?”
“Can facts suffice? Or must cats argue?”
“Argument is a fact of life, a must.”
“How does meaning behave in an argument?”
“Meaning is an alley cat on the prowl and up to no good.”
“Is every text an argument, every argument a trick, every text a test?”
“You ask a lot of hollow questions.”
“I once lived in a hollow.”
“Have you ever been back?”
“Does Theory eschew the behavior of meaning?”
“Go ask a theorist.”
“Do theorists like cats?”
“I suppose some might, but they all want to know how and why we purr.”
“Where do assumptions come from?”
“Assume I don’t know, and wake me up when winter has passed.”
“What a flock of lucky theorists who can fly south for the winter.”
“Have they anything to say to us?”
“I don’t know. Anyway, it’s too hot in the south.”
“It’s going to be too hot in here, too, if you don’t move off that heater vent.”
-
The Assumption: A Graphic Post
We’re in primary school art class, where the students have been told to draw a picture of a house.
Francine draws this:
“What’s this?” Missus Portmanteau, Francine’s art teacher, asks, pointing to the big red circle in the sky. “It looks like a big rock is about to fall on your house.”
Francine is nonplussed in the face of a teacher who doesn’t recognize the sun.
“The sun,” Francine explains.
“The sun isn’t that big,” Missus Portmanteau says, and enters a note in her red book.
The following week in art class, Francine draws this:
“What’s that?” Missus Portmanteau asks Francine, pointing at the orange and red circles over Francine’s house.“Mister Sapidot [science teacher] said the sun spins,” Francine answers.
“Your sun is too big, your house too small.”
Francine feels like the rock has fallen on her house.
“Now what?” Missus Portmanteau asks.
“Someone is taking a nap,” Francine says.
Missus Portmanteau doesn’t say anything, but she makes a firm mark in her red book with a red pen.
It’s the final art class before summer vacation. Francine’s father has promised a special surprise if her report card looks good. This week, she nails the art project.
Francine has learned that to do good in school and please her father she must conform to her teacher’s view of reality.
The Coming of the Toads 