littératuricide’s Neighborhood

Medea

 

the brothers are fighting again

“Mermeros got the fat

and I got none”

“Phereses ate the eyes

and I got none”

these little Jasons

want to conquer her body

breasts and arms

to snatch all the meat

from the soup-pot

she can scarce breathe

in the cave's close heat

hot belly of stone

she is hungry

for a bit of air

 

taking the blade

she slits their throats

in their afternoon naps

she prays their final dreams

are not of war

 

prop them up again

and they fall over

stitch on the heads

it will not work

her healing is done

riding a dragon

rising over princely burial mounds

she will rise

to the moniker

given her

Wicked Medea,

who has no home

but will always have a name

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

7/2008

Notes from Richard Tuttle Lecture/ Naropa/ July 3, 2008, 1:30-3pm

[Richard wears bright hibiscus-pink button-down over sea-blue t-shirt--he's been reading poets in Latin--Ovid, Catullus, Virgil--Mei Mei wears interesting yellow-green snake-skin slippers with drab jeans silver watch cuddles toy poodle holds head in her hands]

*

The 3 Types of Writing Are:

1.  To dig something out.
2.
3.  To point toward what cannot be said.

*

from Richard Tuttle's reading (read in a very halting, cadenced voice):

"the flowering evil...  why should people be annoying to each other?...  there was never a romantic solution...  I can please myself then I can please you...  the rigorous green that makes the world round...  I do not do this to make sense...  sacrifice to the hidden gods...  I don't feel ok...  yes we can take it back...  colossal...  even the forest empty in what you say...  take care of something small...  we see with our own eyes...  my pleasure is there what would you do?...  a novel progressive enough...  I would do anything to know an angel like that...  even if no one watching...  they don't care because they're not artists"

                    Could write of fucking--
                    rather its instant or the slow
                    longing at times of its approach--

                    how the young man desires
                    how, older, it is never known
                    but, familiar, comes to be so.

                    How your breasts, love,
                    fall in a rhythm also familiar,
                    neither tired nor so young they

                    push forward.  I hate the metaphors.
                    I want you.  I am still alone,
                    but want you with me.

                    .     .     .

                    AMERICA

                    America, you ode for reality!
                    Give back the people you took.

                    .    .     .

                    Allen's saying as we fly out of NYC--the look of the city
                    underneath us like a cellular growth, "cancer"--so that
                    senses of men on the earth as an investment of it radiates
                    a world cancer--Burrough's "law" finally quite clear.

                    .     .     .

                    CITIZEN

                    Write a giggly ode about
                          motherfuckers--Oedipus--
                    or Lysergic Acid--a word
                          for an experience, verb

                    .    .    .

                    "But now it's come to distances..."
                                                   --Leonard Cohen.

SELF PORTRAIT THURSDAY!
7.3.08

Astoria Bagels (Bagel?) puts TOO MUCH cream cheese on their bagels.

Just look at this big chunk of cream cheese that fell out of my everything bagel:

Dear Neighbors,

Please join me in extending a hearty welcome to Erc http://erc675.vox.com/.  His poetry is excellent!  Please pop over to see his work.  His Kindergarten poem is particularly lovely.  I'd publish his work were I an editor. 

 

Lucy, who enjoyed the Seattle thunder showers

It's been a while since I've painted a pair of converse, but I really do love it for some reason. I painted these for the lovely Examorata. She hasn't even got them yet but I couldn't resist sharing the pictures.

I am nothing more than a poet:  I love all of you.
Let none think of me.
Let us think of the entire earth
and pound the table with love.
I don't want blood again
to saturate bread, beans, music:
I wish they would come with me:
the miner, the little girl,
the lawyer, the seaman,
the doll-maker,
to go into a movie and come out
to drink the reddest wine.
I did not come to solve anything.
I came here to sing
and for you to sing with me.

--from "Let the Rail-Splitter Awake"

After moving past illness, I am spreading my wings a little more this week. I've had lots and lots of ideas that sort of keep me awake at night. I remember when Gameboys first hit the scene and I was a teenager (you can guess my age now)... I played that darn Tetris game till I was seeing shapes in my sleep. Well, it is that way now, only it's splatters of paint, flecks of pastel and drops of ink that dance across my eyes. I'm not kidding. Maybe it is some sort of condition. Ha. After a hike a couple days ago, I am intrigued by some native colors/shapes I was privileged to observe. We'll see where they appear in sketch and paint.

Here's some fun news. I AM going ahead with a show next month, Friday, August 1st, 2008. The show runs 5 pm - 9ish during the downtown ArtWalk in Flagstaff, AZ. I'll tell more details as the date gets closer. If you're around then, well, just pop on by. You can see my stuff in real life and nibble on goodies. I might make some home-made cookies, and I promise good wine. ;-) I have had thoughts about whether to frame my work, but alas, my budget isn't made of gold, so, I am opting for a nifty bohemian show, very eclectic. I will be generous and show lots of paintings, a collection of sketches and am even considering doing a very large india ink illustration to cover one wall. I had initially planned on a two-man show with my darling and uber-talented friend and artist, but she has been beckoned by another local gallery on the same night. So it is up in the air whether we hoof it together or not. Either way, it will be an interesting evening. I'll link to her gallery at a later date as she is still getting that all together.

What I have here is a collection of lots of ideas, study paintings and sneak peeks of a largish project I am working on: