I also called this painting “Space Rocks”. Paintings are like people, they need a name so you have to come up with one. This painting is owned by my brother, James Larry Jackson. Beats me what he calls it or even if he still has it. It’s not up to me to decide what happens to them.
It’s quite beautiful to me.
david michael jackson july 21, 2012 send wine to go with the art
Landscape With The Fall of Icarus
William Carlos Williams
——————————————————————————–
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings’ wax
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning
From Collected Poems: 1939-1962, Volume II by William Carlos Williams, published by New Directions Publishing Corp. © 1962 by William Carlos Williams. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
***
Lazy Way out
Seed from the bottom
of the parakeet cage
cascades over a ledge
and down the red brick wall.
An assortment of weeds
sprouts in the lily bed,
slender shoots, an offering
to the gardener’s cupped hand.
A tiger striped kitten
pounces on a mound
of fresh green leaves
shimmying up a cross breeze.
A young girl returns
to her bedroom window,
sowing seed to the wind–
The gardener waits.
8/02
(2)
Retired Seaman
The captain sits
at the breakfast table
scrimshawing voyages.
Cafe curtain sails
billow in morning’s bluster.
His shore wife leans
over the porch railing,
aging figurehead
counting goldfish
in a landlocked pond.
The clapboard house lists,
half-foundering to port.
Previously published in miller’s pond – 2001 edition
***
My mom died last year. She and I kinda wrote this song. We were talking on the phone and I wrote down some things she said. She spoke of a car of course and the conversation shifted to others in my family. In writing the song I threw in my wife’s green eyes.
The words so sound like my mother as I read them tonight. I have re-mixed this song to emphasize Andy Derryberry on guitar and bass. I rocked it up as best as my music can be rocked. For me the song is certainly American and sounds like a mother talking about her children. I can’t do my songs justice so they will be lost. It’s a shame on this one.
An artist cannot share the feelings for the art. Whether the world thinks its good or not, the artist feels like a father and mother to the art. It’s an intense feeling that no object deserves but it’s there. It’s there. An artist wants the art to survive, to not end up rotting in some garage or, in the case of music, disappearing completely. It’s not a small feeling.
I think of a place where all the lost objects are, an entropy collection place for all the lost pens, screws and things that disappear. In that giant pile of lost things is art.
Ah poems and songs. Songs don’t come easily for anybody. With poems you can roll your angst into a ball and throw it at the wall. Songs on the other hand only seem to come along occasionally like a drunk that demands liquor right then. They appear and they have to get out and then they are gone. I don’t know if there is another song because I have to wait for the train again. It’s not like a poem. These boxes constantly demand a poem and I deliver them like milk. With a song I have to wait for the train as I swear to never write another.
He really loves that car
He admired it from afar
He went down one day
and drove it away.
Oh he really smiled that day.
And he really loves that girl.
It’s a romance for all of the world.
They met one sunny afternoon
when the shadows were scattered just right.
She wore green to match her eyes
on that very very first night.
Yes he really loves that girl.
You can see them everywhere.
Cruising around town
having fun.
You can’t get them down
because they’re like one.
Oh they really love life.
They sip it like fine wine.
They are a shining star.
And they really love that car
They go everywhere.
yes they really love that car.
It’s red.
yes they really love that car.
I sure love them
and they really love that car.
david michael jackson july 20, 2012 editors@artvilla.com send origami
I play in my brother’s band. There are times that we get tips and occasionally we get paid for gigs. In the strictest sense that makes me a professional, albeit a poorly paid one. This week we had a paid gig at the Marriott at Cool Springs near Franklin (highest per capita income in the state).
So, time approaches and, since it was raining, I hop in the RoadWarrior and head out for the 40 minute drive. I politely parked RW near the back of the parking lot. It’s a ’93 Aerostar with 180K miles on the clock and has a “rode hard and put up wet” look. I decided that the fancier cars should be up front.
In the lobby this old country boy, cleaned up, but not formal, and wearing a ball cap didn’t quite fit in with the crowd of more formal, fancier and generally younger group of people. Didn’t bother me, but I could not find my brother in this crowd so time to ringydingy on the cell phone.
Musicians in the back. Well, it is a big place and it actually more practical to move the equipment in at a spot nearer the stage. We didn’t quite go through the kitchen, but pretty close. We went through the “working” behind the scenes part of the building and quickly got to the stage and quickly set up. I need to point out here that the group that we were playing for was a group of professionals and parents meeting for the benefit of hearing, sight, and speech impaired children. Fine folks doing wonderful work.
Well, it wasn’t going to be a large crowd anyway, but something of a miscommunication and emergency situation meant that we played to a very small crowd. Doesn’t matter to us; we give the full measure of what we signed up for and had a good time. The crowd enjoyed it.
As usual, we don’t tarry at a venue, so when the show finished, we set about breaking down the equipment and loading it up. Back through the service prep area and past the working guys; several of them told us they really enjoyed our music. That was worth more than audience approval and even the paycheck.
Andy Derryberry
July 2012