For Haiku Bones

Fraught

She's wild in nature
Heedless it's fraught with danger
My little house cat

Hearts of Many Colors

  It's still February the month of St. Valentine and the Age of Aquarius and  I have hearts and heart symbolism on my mind.  The following are images of a watercolor painting I did about two years ago and a lithograph by me approximately twenty years ago.  I don't know why I every so often return to the heart motif.  Well I do know why I did today.  It's still February but beyond that.  The heart is a universal symbol for love and was believed to have mystical properties.  In ancient Egypt the heart portion of the soul was balanced against a feather to reveal the truth.  Therefore,  I feel I must be truthful and tell you it's really about something that happened to me many years ago. When I was in the first or second grade I went to an extra class after school one day.  In that class we were taught that there were hearts of many colors but the only pure heart was a white heart.  That stuck with me.  I did not  believe it but I always thought it was a funny thing.  Another thing about the heart is that my mother and her two sisters died from heart failure or heart attack.  So I do listen to mine.

The teacher of that class would have said a green heart is not a pure heart but I like it because it's environmentally friendly.

i carry your heart with me by E. E. Cummings

 

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) 

St. Clair River in February

 

Curving, crawling, cutting

Like jagged knives gutting

a fish fillet

Rock, sand and clay

A small dark bug

Creeping through the cracks

Northward chugs

The tug struggling

Slowly 

Making tracks

Over the

 broken glassy

pack

 

Love Song

Here it is Valentine's Day and I thought of one of my favorite poets.  So instead of writing something of my own I will post his love song.

The heart is a small watercolor I whipped off in celebration of the day.  The heart is a kind of a cliche' but I thought, that's alright for it is Valentine's Day after all. 

The poetry is not sentimental or cliche'.  It is, in my opinion, artful.  I suggest reading it aloud then decide what is being expressed.  Is it  humor, sadness, eroticism or what?

Love Song

I lie here thinking of you:--- the stain of love is upon the world! Yellow, yellow, yellow it eats into the leaves, smears with saffron the horned branches that lean heavily against a smooth purple sky!   There is no light only a honey-thick stain that drips from leaf to leaf and limb to limb spoiling the colors of the whole world-  you far off there under the wine-red selvage of the west! -William Carlos Williams-

Painting to Dante's Divine Comedy

Big snow today but not as big as we expected.  About six inches or so.  It was invigorating to go out and use the snow blower and snow shovel.  My face turned pink and my nose red.  Truffle the cat went to the door thinking she might get out on the deck but turned right around when a blast of wind smacked her in the face.  

I worked in the studio all day doing some watercolors and some collage.  I have several oil paintings sitting on the floor waiting to be finished.  Just a few touches would do it but I didn't feel like getting into that today.  While working out there I have been listening to a teaching CD about Dante's Divine Comedy.  I did not think I would ever read it but a friend gave me the set of CD's so this was my chance to learn about it.  Dante lived from 1265 to 1321.  He wrote The Divine Comedy the last few years of his life while in exile from his home town of Florence.  The epic poem is written in three parts:  Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise.  The theme is about what happens to man's spirit after death but there is much symbolism like in the Bible which was one of his sources.  In his poem Dante was able to combine Christian sources with Pagan, Science, Literature, Philosophy and real people with fictional ones in his journey as a Pilgrim going to all three places.  The first place he visits is Hell which is composed of concentric circles going lower and lower.  Sinners who are not sorry for their sins go to Hell for eternity.  Lucifer is at the bottom frozen in ice (not in flames.).    After that he visits Purgatory.  That is where people go who have sinned but are repentant.  They will eventually get to Paradise.  The last place Dante's pilgrim visits is Paradise.  Dante arrives in Paradise with Beatrice and he asks Apollo and the Muses for his Divine Task.  The first Heaven is the sphere of the Moon.  There are Ten Heavens.  In the Tenth Heaven Dante sees Mary and asks her to intercede so he may gaze on God.  She does and in an instant he understands everything.  

Winter Wonders

 

Her eyes curious

The doe stopped and looked at me

In silent wonder 

 

Looking up to see

I was so dazzled I gasped

A purple sunset 

Air, Wind, and Breath

  

Inhaling the air

I felt like a big balloon

Then I held my breath

 

A clear windless day

Someone lights a cigarette

Blows smoke in my face

Oxygen, Hydrogen and Other Gases

The vapor of life

We breath what the plants exhale

Hail, hail the forests

 

Choking is caused by 

Obstruction in the wind pipe

Fixed with slap on back 

I'm having a good time taking photos and messing with them in Photo shop then posting them with my haikus.  I don't know what a good haiku is.  Therefore I have no idea if what I write is the worst ever or a wonder for the ages.  I kind of doubt the latter.  Anyway, who cares, just so long as it's fun.  I plan to continue doing this for a while.

Seasons

 

I could see my breath

Like a freshwater fresco

In the fractured frost 

  

Once I ran so fast

My feet never touched the ground

Breathlessly, I flew

 

Winter Deer

• Shadows from the woods
• Uncannily silent deer
• Appearing like ghosts