"Todays main hero is a talanted graphic artist from Spain, Elena Dudina. Her beautiful artworks are great combinations of magic fantasy and dark emotions. Just playing with illumination, colors, and contrast she brings us something special. But the main thing is the idea. As she said “It’s like a puzzle. It’s a long process to make it perfect.” She has created photomanipulations for almost 2 years and already has such stunning results. Elena is definitely a talanted artist" - beautiful life
The Wordle that started this:
Go to the Big Tent to see the gathering of the devoted.
How far would you go to find the Way? If I placed the potion before you, would you drink, like Alice down the rabbit hole and out in some strange garden beyond the ordinary? Would you eat the mushroom, dance with the Mad Hatter, pay heed to the Dormouse? Would you recite this poem three times at the full of the moon? I cannot ask it of you, can only say there is a Way to find, that some do find.
Would you practice and then practice some more, become the artist on fire for the revelation? Do another poem, then drop all poses and declare your desperate love in the essence of it all - in the grief of it all.
Drink The Essence
The glossy extract
comes from my hook set, my trap
near the bitter place
at the bottom step
of God's drooping old staircase.
It's royal purple
you know, this essence
of a shiny plasticine
doll's sweet, sweet french kiss.
You who stand astride
muddy patches, you are called.
Take the drinking gourd
filled with this potion
and drink the last of it all -
then pluck the holy.
October 14, 2010 8:00 PM
The words fit together here very well. I like the last stanza!
ReplyDeleteextraction
Elixir right? "Pluck the holy" sums up nicely.
ReplyDeleteRoyal purple suits me so. I like the sound of that essence!
ReplyDeleteEssence
ReplyDeleteThere’s that postcard of you,
the small dancing hairs
on your neck like you had
as a baby, and that bead
of sweat, running
just down below the collar.
I slice my tongue
along its worried edge,
and it tastes like rain.
I liked reading all of this today and the image and new knowledge of the artist. All was good. Thanks
ReplyDeleteYour poem suits the image well. It has all the same qualities you note of the artist's work. Just enough of a blend to pull one inside and wish to stay a bit longer.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth
Irene, the Holy is a ripe peach shining with its own light hanging on a branch extending from the heart of God.
ReplyDeletegautami, thank you for saying so.
ReplyDeleteDerrick, a beautiful lady friend of mine for over twenty years has been bringing something purple to the gathering on most days the whole time. When I think of purple, I think of her but because of nature shows I also tend to think of primates in rut and their swollen parts engorged with blood and other fluids, like baboons but also like us sometimes.
ReplyDeleteAnthony, I will not wear a false modesty. I am a wordsmith. I know it was all good. The rest is taste. I don't prefer mainstream country music but that doesn't stop it from being good. Neither is my writing to everyone's taste. That doesn't stop it from being good. I have other posts that haven't been so good and I have poems I wrote that I will not let see the light of day.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, I didn't write the note on the artist. I took it entire from the website. It was a note in ESL English, and quite fractured in certain places. I cleaned those up but otherwise did not alter the note.
ReplyDeleteThank you for noticing what I noticed. I was very fortunate to see her work so quickly. It was an obvious fit to me, especially as I had written of Wonderland characters already. Here's the 'shroom, the caterpillar said, smoking his hookah...eat this.
(((Rachel W)))
ReplyDeleteThe Post Card
Did it arrive, then?
I sent you my youth, my song
of the summer's way
with the white gold hair
sunshine gave me in those days.
God's bead of grace acts
exactly like sweat
running down my sacred form.
That's why my soft edge
tastes so much like rain.
Ah, I think I will dance with the mad hatter, thank you, before I take the drinking gourd filled with potion.
ReplyDeleteChistopher, what strikes me is "God's drooping old staircase." I can kind of picture that!! Oh, I doubt I would eat the mushroom!
ReplyDeleteLove the picture, respect the poem, and the way you have blended all the fantasies while not forgetting the wordle. Possibly fantasy is the only sane way to deal with these strange mixtures of words!
ReplyDeleteYou've used the prompt words in surprising, and luscious, ways. I especially like "God's drooping old staircase"-- not quite the grandiosity many of us in the West are used to associating with the divine, but somehow completely right.
ReplyDeleteMary, it's a good idea to dance first for three reasons...the Hatter is after all Mad and quite likely to drift beyond your ken at your least distraction, (2) the activity will increase your metabolism and help the potion act quickly, (3) who knows what you will be doing next after drinking, but there is no doubt you will be busy!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Diane. I especially enjoyed the serendipity of editing my way to that phrase. I was surprised by the truth I found in God's drooping old staircase.
Viv, fantasy is the only sane way to deal with the contents in my head...that much is sure.
EK, coming from you that is sweet praise indeed. We are taught in the West to view God with an over developed sense of awe ever since monotheism triumphed in the political arena. Monotheism may be a more accurate overall picture of the Divine (though a significant group of us still disagrees) but the politics of monotheism, the quality of that awe, continues to be terroristic and permits linking Divinity and Violence in abhorrent ways. None in the Judaeo-Christian-Islamist world have escaped it.
I add that it is probably the Brahmanistic strain within the Hindu experience that permits them to be so willing to partner with Islam in the violence that each does to the other ever since the Mughals swept into India, but Islamists of the middle ages surely started it by invading India.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written and very nice blog. Thanks for visiting mine, too!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful!
ReplyDeleteChristopher, you have so many facets of personality. First off, loved the image - glad you shared it. The poem itself is lush, faith images flit around the edges but don't engorge it. I'm one of those followers of Jesus who also follows the Buddha and feels that most conflict in the world is started around religion - "I'm right, you're a heretic" or "That's MY land, not yours..."
ReplyDeleteJust as all art is valid and subject no universal scale or truth, so our beliefs are valid. Only in violence is there a place for the creator to shed tears.
Amy Barlow Liberatore
Old Hippie, Too
I would love to drink the potion from the gourd and pluck the holy...beautiful.
ReplyDeleteLKH, Glad to see you here.
ReplyDeleteTumblewords, thank you
Amy, we just went undercover or into exile...I try not to inundate readers with demands of any kind. I like to say that we can check the name of God at the door, like people check their guns with the Sheriff when they come to town. We can easily agree on the fact of God but not so easily on the name of God. God as I understand Him demands little of us we do not care to give but demands all of us if we offer.
This blog is full of God talk, though not the usual sort. Wander through the archives and you'll see. Much of it comes from my lovely friends who stay awhile. The discussions can get lively here.
Willow, the trouble with fantasy is that sometimes it calls hard to me and then I have to realize where I am at. Or is that the good news?
Christopher, i keep forgetting to say. I often very much enjoy your choice of pictures, and i also followed your link to this website from Elana, and she is amazing. There are so many most beautiful things on this Internet.
ReplyDeleteYes, Jozien, it has permitted maximum exposure. There are so many of us, so many creative humans who have perfected their art, and now there are these possibilities for publishing that never existed before.
ReplyDeleteIf it is all about the money for you (whoever you are who wants to share), then you can hold back and try for that. Otherwise, there are these avenues and if we who look on choose, then you can go viral as we call it.
I am up to 5600 page hits according to the counter, though that counts me too. That means several thousand views of my site since May when I started counting. These days there is often more than me viewing this site at the same time. Just now someone from Europe was here too.