Sunday, November 13, 2011

How I Used Photoshop Yesterday

Courtesy of Google Images, through
Tess at Willow Manor

"Ever since happiness heard your name, she has been running through the streets trying to find you." - Hafiz of Persia

"One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often." - Erich Fromm

"Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh." - Kahlil Gibran

How I Used Photoshop Yesterday

You tested me, running
through the city streets. I drove
through your inner states.
All I could find were
the chairs you left sitting out
on the misty lawn
so I shopped you in
as this anonymous girl,
an uncredited
image to be found
by future poets, to be
ambiguously
the source for broken
hearts or toyed with, their images.
I'm taking a nap.

November 13, 2011 10:33 AM

Written for Magpie Tales. *click here*



22 comments:

  1. how beautifully, neatly self-referential ... love it
    thanks for sharing
    martine

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  2. p.s. thanks for the Erich Fromm quote

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  3. Love how you photoshopped her in...lovely metaphor...

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  4. Very good word play, really like the 'inner states.' Really like the last line too. (and like Martine I like the Fromm quote)

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  5. Wonderful quotes... Thank you for sharing :)

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  6. Chris,
    "Shop you as in this anonymous girl"...brilliant...its good to be back...i might have grown up...because employment eludes me the comfort of the world you and i shared.....hope you have been well...

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  7. First rate offering for this Magpie - and I love the Kahlil Gibran quote - spot on.:)

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  8. The quotes are excellent for the prompt. But I particularly sense between the lines ( and especially the last one) you've allowed the reader the option of abdicating responsibility for his or her own actions.

    That last line is such a clincher for self evaluation!!

    Rick

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  9. Incredibly creative and clever take on the prompt! I enjoyed it.

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  10. very clever Christopher - and a lovely poem too

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  11. Photoshop ... who would have thought? Wonderful Magpie Christopher.

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  12. Thank you all for your visits and your comments.

    Rick, you are spot on. :D Except of course my implication mainly applies to my own actions.

    And martine, yes, I did not set out to be self referential to the image but I ended up working hard to hone the implosion. I love it when things turn out by surprise like this. The poem had a life of its own and demanded of me the light of day.

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  13. ha glad you shopped her in so we could all feel the girl that ran through the streets...

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  14. I love photoshop for all the new realities it affords us. But it makes me sad as well. We can only be sure now, under a microscope.

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  15. You've touched upon the sadness I feel for the photographer that created this lovely and evocative image but will never be known, not even the briefest credit. My Magpie this week is Goldilocks

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  16. "I'm taking a nap."
    To end such a clever poem with that is so naughty, Christopher... go sit on a chair! :-)

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  17. That's where I sleep rather often, in a chair. :D

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  18. drive through your inner states,



    what a cool line,
    the whole magpie is very masterful and magical.

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  19. thank you, Morning. You have recognized a technique of wordsmithing, crafting a sentence with an action and a place of action that do not fit together in ordinary life but that consist of words that would fit together in another context. Thus the phrase "ought" to work even though it doesn't in an ordinary way.

    The native English speaker actually approves of the connection from experience because it is (in this case) only "inner" that is out of place.

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  20. Example: I can drive through the Southern states or I can drive through your front yard and neither phrase is remarkable.

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The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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