Tag Archives: Art

Poetry, Writing

Olive Green Yarn

Leave a comment

(Poem 273 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

(Hair stick art display)

I needed a way
to display
my hair sticks
decoratively,
so I measured
and sketched
a design Grandad
could build
with his hands
and his tools
and his can-do
attitude that turns
ideas into art,
like a barn
or a staircase,
a balance beam
or doll furniture,
or a simple
wooden frame
with olive green yarn
stretched taut
between raised metal tacks
and a shiny gold hook
holding fast at the top
to hang my idea
for all the world to see.

@Home Studio – 273rd poem of the year

Poetry

Ways I’ve Thrown Out My Back In My 50s

Leave a comment

(Poem 270 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/K6aM9w

Washing dishes (scrubbing a cookie sheet too hard.)
Rolling over in bed.
Holding up my cell phone to show my daughter a video.
Sitting up straight in my chair.
Bending over to pet Cotton Eyed Joe (my granddaughter’s cat.)
Typing.
Opening a Splenda packet; shaking it too vigorously.
Brushing my teeth.
Scooping a cup of dog food into the dog’s bowl.
Waving my Harry Potter wand.

@Home Studio – 270th poem of the year

Poetry, Writing

Plasma Blobs

Leave a comment

(Poem 269 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/OvDj2h

Plasma is rare
on earth,
though found
in abundance
everywhere else
in space.
And now scientists
are telling us
that these blobs
that are not solid,
liquid, or gas,
but another state:
communicate,
behave predatorially,
congregate,
interact with satellites,
get the zoomies,
race excitedly
toward thunderstorms,
form crystals—
corkscrew shaped
like DNA,
and may be inorganic
non-biological life
or pre-life,
and we’re supposed
to go on sipping our tea
and paying our bills.

@Home Studio – 269th poem of the year

Runner ups for the Plasma photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

How Will We Know

Leave a comment

(Poem 268 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/MpZoHg

Can agony
awaken possibility?
Is it painful
for the seed
to sprout,
or is the bursting out
more like relief?
Will something fresh
find its way through
the detritus
and despair,
and if so,
how will we know
when we can
hope again?

@Home Studio – 268th poem of the year

Poetry, Writing

It makes me sad

Leave a comment

(Poem 267 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/cjguXR

It makes me so sad
that people hurt
others and break
their own hearts,
that alleviating pain
destroys so many
from the inside out,
and we must endure
misfortune and loss,
especially if we allow
ourselves to love
with the full volume
of our souls.

@Home Studio – 267th poem of the year

Runner ups for the Sad photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

Artifact M123ST

Leave a comment

(Poem 266 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

Artifact M123ST was found in the ruins
of one of the few habitations to have
survived the cataclysm mostly intact.
It is a six-sided rectangular box. We are
unable to ascertain the container’s true
purpose but feel certain it must have
been used to store items of religious or
spiritual significance, or it has also been
suggested that they were used as protective
casings for one of their most valuable
assets–sand. It is known that sand became
a valuable commodity prior to the cataclysm,
as it was one of the fundamental, critical
components of building materials in their
world. Undecipherable characters appear
to be inscribed in patterns, though the
sample size is too small to determine if
it is representative of language, or merely
decorative scrawling. Of special interest
is the latching mechanism that holds the
lid of the box closed. A small rectangular
indentation can be pressed, releasing the
latch, which permits the lid to spring open.
A satisfying click indicates the lid has been
closed securely when the latch reengages.
We know little of these primitive people who
lived before the cataclysm, but artifacts such
as these offer a glimpse into their lost culture.

@Home Studio – 266th poem of the year

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/Ne1Ypc

Poetry, Writing

Washing the Knife

Leave a comment

(Poem 264 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/xNDyau

Maybe the way
I wash this knife
with precision,
erasing the past
with friction,
soap, and molecules
is in some little way
the meaning of life.

Maybe scraping
the crusty
remnants of drippage
on countertops
until the rag slides smooth
is its own reward
somehow.

Maybe the fact
that hot
water melts
butter residue
from a dish,
inviting it to slip
effortlessly from its former
state
and find freedom
in movement
is the most real
thing I know,
or think
I know,
or want
to know
because knowing
is somehow solid,
purposeful, sure,
and I suspect
that I know
nothing,
or there is nothing
to know,
or knowing
means nothing,
thus,
washing a knife
is the meaning
of life.

@Home Studio – 264th poem of the year

Runner ups for the Washing Dishes photos to accompany my poem (AI had a hard time with this one):

Poetry, Writing

Safekeeping

Leave a comment

(Poem 261 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/FGMuRf

I am always fascinated
by people unafraid to
share the gruesome
details of their lives
with the rest of us so
we can hold them up
to the light and examine
their every wart and
crack, wrinkle and roll
of fat like specimens.
But the glass jar with
pink paper inside that
made the cover look
warm and inviting was
a trap that forced me
to witness her most
vulnerable moments,
and now I feel sad and
embarrassed for her.

@Home Studio on 9/17/24 @ 7:45pm – 261st poem of the year (After reading Safekeeping-some true stories from a life by Abigail Thomas.)

Thomas, Abigail. Safekeeping -some true stories from a life. Anchor Books, 2001.

Runner ups for the Safekeeping photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

How to Hold a Cockroach

Leave a comment

(Poem 260 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/W0ZpTf

I know how to hold a cockroach.
That is not the problem. The real
problem is in the willingness to
hold the cockroach because I
don’t want to. I absolutely know
intellectually that the cockroach
will not harm me, and I absolutely
know spiritually that cockroaches
are God’s creatures, too, and I
absolutely know psychologically
that the exercise is good for my
psyche and all that jazz, but I
still don’t want to extend my hand
and allow the cockroach to climb
aboard and scurry all around. I
just got chills up my spine thinking
about it because the story is still
too strong that my mind makes up,
and I’m just not ready to let it go.

@Home Studio – 260th poem of the year (After reading How to Hold a Cockroach by Matthew Maxwell.)

Maxwell, Matthew. Illustrations by Allie Daigle. How to Hold a Cockroach – A book for those who are free and don’t know it, Hearthstone, 2020.

Runner ups for the Cockroach photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

Friday the 13th

Leave a comment

(Poem 257 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/05ijyi

My grandmother Mema’s father’s
father Grandpa Carroll was an extremely
superstitious man who came down
hard on anyone who walked under a
ladder or spilled salt without throwing
some over the shoulder or broke a
mirror without taking proper precautions.
Mema did not remember what the proper
precautions were, as she was a small
child when she got harshly scolded for
spinning a chair on one leg in the dining
room, and her father had to come to
her defense, reprimanding his own
father for spouting such nonsense.
He hated black cats, unlucky numbers,
stepping on cracks, the opening of
umbrellas in the house, speaking of
the dead, and she thinks he told her
about the need to keep an axe under
the bed when a woman is in labor
to protect her from evil spirits about.
She found his stories both horrifying
and confusing, since her parents
countered that they were not true.
As she grew, her only superstition
became the spells of prayer she
uttered without ceasing to protect
her loved ones, which I know saved
us all on a number of occasions.

@Home Studio – 257th poem of the year