End of Day

End of day --
Hands jammed in pockets,
You and I shuffle through last year's soggy leaves
Searching for an opening.
Dead grass clumps beneath
And trees with skeleton hands claw their way up
Ghostly monochrome against the bruise-black sky.

This was once our time.
Back when the sleepy world turned to ice
Leaving lunatics and fools to bundle to the ears
And warm themselves by drawing silent pictures in the stars,
We owned this.
But spring's early warmth has hatched the party down the street,
The kids in the alley smoking something or other,
And the neighbour showing off his power with an obnoxious backyard floodlight.
Still, high above us
Orion shows his power in the heavens --
It's the same show, dear,
Just a different venue.

The noise disgusts you, I can tell --
You dig your feet in just a little deeper
As we stare out on those far-off lights
That our brains can't help turning into paintings.
I remember joining them --
The indistinct shapes pulling me along in the wandering,
The stories more real than anything on TV.
Now the skeleton trees demark my cage,
The bars which keep me from visiting the heights --
I'm chained to everyday...
You've broken my wings, my love,
But you don't know because you've never even flown.

"It's no use," you sigh,
"There's nothing here to see tonight."
Funny how the warmth has made the stars grow cold.
You trudge blindly back towards the house.
I stay, willing Polaris to point my way
For I am adrift on this ocean.
But stars are dead tonight,
And better sailors than I would be lost forever.

I see I needed winter chill to find us dancing in the sky --
New life has brought us to an ending,
And I shall mourn for you
Although you'll never notice I am gone.

----------

Um, yeah. A companion to this one, actually.

I'm completely incapable of leaving well enough alone when it comes to love poems. The cynic in me just won't allow it.

Doodling on the bed

I got busy with some other things and didn't get a chance to do any proper sketching today (like my sketching is ever proper. It's all just doodling in the end anyway) so I figured I'd have a go at the Illustration Friday theme of the week after supper instead.

The problem?

Well, besides not really being in the mood to doodle...

This week's topic is canned.

Don't believe me? Have a look. Um, as long as you're looking on this particular week. Next week it'll be something different. That's why they call it a topic of the week, after all.

Anyway, I didn't get very far. And even with that I think it's a bit too editorial.

And... it's not very good either.

I'd only just barely started on the shading before I decided I was bored. Not at all obvious, is it?

Yeah.

Ah well, if nothing else it's a start. And if you were wondering (or if you're completely not picking up the tone of the typing), I won't be bothering to submit the doodle.

Next time? Um, maybe.

We'll see.

Meditations in an Emergency

Frank O'Hara was referenced on Mad Men last night. Google Book Search has this preview of Meditations in an Emergency available, so I thought I'd post it just in case anyone was curious as to the type of poetry that was involved in the show's plot line.

Boot to the head

No, it's not a post about the Frantics. I'm just trying to remind myself yet again about Illustration Friday, that's all. It's one of those things that I keep meaning to do and never get around to. Maybe putting the link here will give me the boot to the head that I need?

Oh, not likely. Can't blame a girl for trying, though.

Daylily in watercolour pencil

This one qualifies as not too bad, I suppose, especially since I was only able to do the initial pencil sketch and basic colour layout outside (it's a bazillion degrees out today and far too sunny to be staring at white paper for long) and then faked the blending and highlights at the dining room table.

Ok, so you didn't really need to know about the dining room table.

Hey, note that I said it's a bazillion degrees out today? I did this today. This afternoon, even.

Maybe there's hope for some regular doodling yet.

----------

Edited a couple of years later to say that this has since been exhibited. Seriously. We had a staff art show in the Gallery, and this was one of the pieces chosen. I find that very strange. Other people -- non-internet people, I mean -- actually saw some of my stuff.

Weird.

Red-Osier Dogwood in graphite

I'm getting some weird scanner artifact on this one, but I'm not in the mood to fix it. Just assume that the real thing isn't one big grey smudge.

This was a quick sketch at the desk this afternoon, pencil in one hand and piece of shrub in the other. It's kind of a silly way to doodle (especially as the leaves get limper and limper), but there's enough of a breeze outside that I wasn't in the mood to fight it and actually field-sketch.

Nothing special, this one. Just wanted to prove that there is a bit of drawing going on this summer. A nice change from last year.

More sketchbook

In other words, I didn't get around to sketching this week.

I managed a whole one week in a row. I am sooo good...




sigh

Peas Please

If I could only eat one vegetable for the rest of my life
I think it would be peas
But not your everyday out-of-the-freezer-bag peas
Oh no
I'm talking fighting your way through too-closely packed rows of twined-up vines
Listening to those swollen pods rattle
And the squeeeak as you nip them off with green-stained thumb and finger
To add them to their brothers in the basket
(Although many mysteriously find their way to the mouth instead)
And then the POP and RIIIP of those cocoons
As they relinquish their close-guarded treasures
Green globes cascading into Tupperware
And into laps when attention wavers
All leading up to that proud presentation at the dinner table:
Our heroes -- slightly chilled of course
Having never known the sacrilege of the cooking pot
Ready to explode stored sunshine with every bite...
Ah, I think that I shall never see
A veggie lovely as a pea

Unless you count those firm, crisp new carrots there
Mmm... carrots...

----------

The was written a few years ago in a moment of pure silliness. I think, though, that it still has a little bit of something to say about the transience of satisfaction.

Either that, or it's a hint at the absolute relief that finally having fresh veggies again can give a person who lives in a country with a fairly short growing season...

Columbine in watercolour pencil

Ok, this version? Definitely weirder than this version. It started out relatively realistic, but then I got playing with the colours and a few colours ended up in there that had no right to be anywhere near the flower and then I got a bit carried away with bleeding things out because I thought it looked neat and then...

Hey, there's a reason I don't paint, all right?

It still looks a little bit like the original flower, though, in case anyone wondered.

Columbine in carbon pencil

I know, you're thinking "what kind of idiot draws a nice, colourful flower in black and white?"

Don't worry, I'm thinking it too.

Please do note, though, that the date on this doodle is NOT from two years ago. That's right, I've actually sat down and done a proper drawing.

Ok, maybe not proper exactly, but at least it mostly looks like a flower.





Erm... doesn't it?