Tangents

I was trying to string together something to do with garnets and gannets, thanks to this thread over at M'ris's LJ. But there was also this...

Nobody ever talks about the Amazons returning to Capistrano. Hmph.

— Marissa Lingen (@MarissaLingen) 4 Mars 2014

... so I'll have to give the gannets their due some other night. No, I don't understand my brain either. But stuff like this does have a history of happening after I eavesdrop on M'ris and Elise. (I will also add that some years ago Elise sent me some garnets as part of a gift from Dichroic, the other part being this poem. The world, it teems with treasure...)


The month has started under water --
a sense of too much to shove at or swallow:
sprawling projects, tax returns ...
To wield a spear like an Amazon,
to hammer antique fears into a gleaming bow ---
these aren't skills I can list on my present

résumé, but what's needed at present
is something like. To get out of the water --
to haul my soggy rear back into the bow,
spluttering out what I couldn't help but swallow --
it isn't pretty, training to be an Amazon.
I'm told such pangs will yield happy returns

but some days I think of all the sad returns
I boxed up back in the warehouse -- this unwanted present,
that unhelped self. My wishlist at Amazon
changes by the week, like flavors of water
from a sportsdrink sales rep's cooler. Swallow
this magic pill. Now take your bow

on the Wonderland stage. in the Wonderland court. Tied up with a bow,
neatly wrapped -- low risk, low returns.
I know that, but the truth's still tough to swallow
when the press of my weariness outweighs the present.
I have to remember how petrels pierce the water,
scaring off sharks with the skill of an Amazon.

I've never longed to sail down the Amazon
but then I never expected each night to bow
my head with such thanks for running water,
schooled by floods and droughts. The returns
of every field, I now regard as a present.
I've watched dying people, how they can't even swallow

the thinnest dribble of water. Oh, when the swallow
nests again by the bell, will we see the Amazon
gliding into harbor as well? Will it present
a dazzlement of gems -- the gold-bright bow,
a garnet-studded scabbard? What returns
isn't always what was cast upon the water --

in some of my dreams, men in swallow-tails bow
to Amazons as their equals. But waking returns
me back to the present. I plunge back into the water.

- pld


ETA 8:40 pm: It never fails -- an edit making itself obvious after I press "post"...

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/77364.html.

I was looking at this month's Nashville Arts Magazine while waiting on a delivery this morning; it has an interview with John Mellencamp that I really enjoyed. His paintings frankly aren't to my taste, but his observations about math and baggage and hypocrisy all spoke to me -- I like how grounded he is.

Math? you ask. From the mouth of Cougar? Why, yes:

As much as I hate to admit it, math is very important in everything, in music and in painting. If your math is incorrect you're not going to get the results you're looking for. ... I'm not saying you can't make a beautiful painting without math or without certain rules, but I couldn't get the results I do without following them.

And on spectators who don't take his painting seriously because he's a rock star:

I get that. I do the same thing. I'm human. I'm like, what is this actor doing with a guitar in his hand; he can't even act. I totally understand, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter to me. ... people who know nothing about art say, "I could've done that, but the point is, they didn't. It's like someone walking up to me and going, "Hey, I could've written 'Pink Houses,' but you know -- they didn't. I did. Same with my paintings.

This entry was originally posted at http://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/11846.html.