art music poetry

He Stretches the Line Poem

by

red abstract painting
He stretches the line
too thin
it may break
leaving me falling
falling into the nothingness
of having nothing to say

so say the blood is red as it flows
and it makes the tongue red
and her lips
as they play with the spoon

he stretches the line too thin
it breaks
and her lips are lost
as he falls

and the spoon is left
lying there on the table
and the reflections
of the room
flicker on the surface

he stretches the line too thin
end the poem fool
end the poem
you said the blood is red

david michael jackson

There is a Bull in the Road Part 1 and now 2

by
abstract bull painting
Bull

“There is a bull in the road.”
“What?”
It was too early for a problem thought Johnson. What now? I have to go to work.
“There is a bull in the road.”. She was standing at the door. Her feet were bare. She was holding the door open and hiding behind it.
Johnson went to the door. The bull was clacking around on the road. There were children in the yards. Now Johnson, you see, was a farmer’s son. It was just another cow out to him. A cow had almost killed Johnson’s grandfather but generally the animals can be “rounded up”.
Johnson quickly put on his jeans and shoes.
“You going out there?, she said. Her round face tilted as she spoke.
“It’s a bull.”, he said. “There are children.”
Johnson went to the porch down the stairs and to the road. There was a field on the other side of the road. The barbed wire fence was down in one area. Johnson found a gate. A gate in a barbed wire fence is a pole with three strands of barbed wire tied to it. Johnson pulled the pole out of the loops and layed the gate open.
The bull meanwhile was still standing lazily in the road. Johnson crossed the road and confronted the bull.

….to be continued

abstract bull painting
Bull

Johnson noted the children down the road but they did not concern him. He had spent his youth on the creek, in the “hollow” rounding the cows up every evening. His grandfather could call the hogs and they would come. Soo pig. Soooeee.  
Cows were different. The cows would wander up the creek and this meant a round up every day. Every farm boy had a rounding call for cows. A “heeaa” to get the creatures moving. You don’t lead cows, you drive cows. Cows have a healthy respect for Isaac Newton and resist motion. Johnson had a call to get a cow moving too. He used it now on the bull.

“Heeaar….heeaa…heaaa now cow….come up there”, he yelled.

The bull, seeing that Johnson was a man of experience in these matters took it in the manner expected and turned slowly toward the fence.The jig was up. Move toward the fence slowly and give in to the small creature who seems to know his stuff.
Johnson and the bull did the I’m going this way, oh no you are not for awhile and the bull was slowly directed through the gate and back into the field.

Johnson then went to the part of the fence that was down. He pulled and positioned the fallen post until it temporarily did the job. This left a few strands of barbed wire to crudely wrap around things to form a barrier that might last until the fence was repaired. As Johnson was grabbing the last strand the end of it let loose and, swoosh, gained velocity. Johnson’s head jerked to one side to avoid the rapier like strand of loose wire hell.
“Whoo that almost got me”
Johnson corralled the last strand and conquered it quickly but something was not right. His hand went to the side of his head and came back red. There was something wrong with his ear. He crossed the road quickly with his hand over his ear and could see the bus coming down the road as he climbed the steps.
She opened the door.
“”Oh my! You are bleeding.”
“I’ve hurt myself”, he said

……..to be continued

david michael jackson

Thanksgiving Poem by Thomas Kellar

by

THANKSGIVING

Kevin.
The man next door.
Insatiably punctual.
Wouldn’t dream of being late
Even to a root-canal.
Dresses like his tailor’s life
depended on it.
Drives a European sedan
that speaks to him,
“the door is ajar.”
Habitually watches the weather channel.

Today,
he burned through autumn daylight
passionately dandifying his house
with outside decorations
pulled from carefully labeled
cardboard boxes.
Mr. and Mrs. Claus,
sleigh, reindeer, stars, angels,
candy canes and ginger bread men,
a complete nativity scene,
(including livestock)
plastic wreaths,
rope lights,
icicle lights,
lights that pulse and fade.
In response to 9/11,
a luminescent American flag.

7 PM.
He stands outside
surrounded by neighbors,
yells to his wife,
“the orange extension cord.”
Instantly
like police helicopter
tracking criminal,
night is shredded,
pupils contract,
cockroaches run for cover.
“ooohhh-aaahhhh”
a yuletide fantasia
That would cause Martha Stewart envy,
no energy crisis here.

In my kitchen
a friend bakes pumpkin pie,
rinses the good China,
defrosts the turkey for tomorrow’s celebration.
I tell her to forget about it.
“Gratitude is a dying sentiment,
Thanksgiving is going the way of the Buffalo,
it’s a ghost town
between Halloween-berg and Christmas-ville,
the train doesn’t stop there anymore.”
She looks annoyed,
ignores my rant,
wants to know if I like
chestnuts in the stuffing.
***

Originally published at Artvilla.com on Nov 30, 2004 @ 8:46

Pac Man Abstract Painting

by

Pac Man Abstract Painting

I don’t think of him as a painting. When he comes up he’s just “Pac Man”. He has his own identity. He actually was painted circa 1993 in oils. Sometimes you are just slinging paint. In order to paint there has to be no fear and it has to be worth nothing, an experiment, it doesn’t count, it’s just extra materials, this one doesn’t count, I’m just doing one for fun.

The key to my art is lots of materials. I wish I had Theo to support me completely and buy me all of those materials. Where is my Theo? Vince you never knew what you had or you wouldn’t have pulled the trigger.

Every now and then the songwriter catches those notes or those words out of thin air. The painter does too….sometimes the paint seems to fall on the canvas like it was falling from the sky. The creative process in of itself is almost mystical. The act of creating any thought is mystical. Pac Man didn’t come from the game, he came from what I thought were random motions of my hand.

With any art, music, writing you sometimes get Pac Man and wonder why you don’t nail it every time. I once did the Pollock thing and poured paint onto canvas. Two out of ten were really neat. I didn’t like those odds but I wonder why the “tried hard on these” percentages are somewhat the same. Did Van Gogh flip through them and think, “Starry Night. What was I thinking?”

Pac Man, “What was I thinking?”

 

Many discovered artists do their best work before the discovery. Real discovery is that painting you discarded last year but suddenly looks like someone else painted it.

From the collection of Ralph (Abe) White

 

david michael jackson   again…..send pretty rocks and shells and sticks

 

Billie Holiday l Michael Veik Drawing

by
Billie Hilliday by Michael Veik drawing
Billie Hilliday by Michael Veik drawing

 

This drawing by Michael Veik is from the collection of Ralph (Abe) White. If you click on it it gets rather large and you can see the detail. I’ve looked for Michael’s work on the internet and haven’t found it. I hope he shows up because he is astounding!