New Poem

“Chalkboard Sky”

Today, the sky was a dusty blue chalkboard.
Moistened splotches glazed the clean azure slate—
Splotches full of muddled phrases, scattered symbols, and broken words
Strewn about the atmosphere!
Dusty mists that tickle the Titan’s nose;
Ethereal haze to lessen the bright;
Sinewy smoke of a sunlit sky;
Wandering fog alift from the ground.

And, stunned, I sat,
Absorbing and reflecting the heavenly boon—
The beauteous bounty of the ether! To whom do
I owe thanks for such sagacity?
Some aged and impotent Jupiter?
Or the viewless lark, warmed with eternal rays,
Leaving wondrous cloudy code
For me to discern?
Or some green-winged faery to entice
The rapture of my weary mind?
Alas, I can do little but behold.

And, tomorrow,
Similar letters and forms
Will wash into a foam
Upon the dusty blue chalkboard sky.



[Feb 7th, 2006]

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On another note, I was just thinking about this ridiculous idea that I've been laughing about (to myslef, mostly) this past week. Two weeks ago, we were at the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition on Self-Portraiture (a really fantastic show, i thought, with works from Velazquez to van Gogh, to Francis Bacon to Stanley Spencer, to Warhol, to Whistler). Well, afterward Mike and I were in the gift shop, and they had all these books on portraiture and self-portraiture, each focusing on one artist in particular. And, they all had actual portraits on the front covers, either a portrait of the artist himself or a distinct portrait of another. Except Hogarth. Hogarth's had a portrait of a cat. Haha, so this grand notion entered my head that Hogarth was actually a cat! That great British painter and moralist was in fact a feline imposter! It's hard to imagine how dextrous those paws must have been, to get such naturalistic detail. I can imagine that oil paint would be pretty hard to get out of his fur, too.

So, the joke grew a lot further in my mind, but i'll spare the full details. Anyway, that's what I've been laughing about for a while. Here's a poor reproduction of the detail: