Monthly Archives: July 2017

Ode to Bacon

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Ode to Bacon

How you lend
yourself
to others,

enhancing even
the sweetest fig
in your embrace
over coals,

or consider
your rendered
self, how it

deepens flavor
with piggish
essence, coating

or absorbed,
blended or
sopped. O belly
of delight, o wonder
of tongues,

how could I not
love you
and your infinite
charms, even

when you resist
my efforts and
shoot sizzling bits

of yourself
onto my naked
hands? I pay

this toll
gladly,
today and

next year
and all those
days to follow,

till the last piece
is swallowed
and our sun
goes dark.

Hyperbole
becomes you,
smoked beauty,
salted love,

and I shall never
put you down
or leave you
behind

on a plate
to be discarded
or forgotten,

unloved.

With thanks to T.S. Wright, for her challenge.

 

The Way Smoke

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the way smoke
scribes a letter in the sky…

Excerpt from “Flame,” in From Every Moment a Second, available for prepublication order now via Finishing Line Press.

 

 

 

Please note:  prepublication sales determine the print run, which means this stage is crucial in terms of how many copies will be printed and the number of copies I’ll receive as payment. So if you feel inclined to help this poet in his commercial endeavor (which does seem rather ludicrous), and are able, please purchase your copy during this period, which runs through August 11. The book’s tentative release date is October 6. .

Sunday Compulsion: Ron Throop (Why I Paint)

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Welcome to “Sunday Compulsion,” in which creatives answer one question: Why do I create? Here’s artist Ron Throop:

I began an expressionist career as an autobiographical writer, revering the American masters Henry Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and Henry Miller. The latter would paint whenever the writing blocked his freedom. I too found this to be very helpful. When I write, I am tight. When I paint, I am light. Painting is never frustrating. However, writing is a lot like bricklaying. It is linear, and sure, there is a place for that in my psyche, but it must make room for physical play and surprise. I can express so much more in a painting, especially one with a pertinent title. Kenneth Patchen did this with what he called “picture poems”. He is worth looking up to get more of an idea about what moves me. For pay I worked many jobs in the restaurant business as a cook and chef. I also tutored at home both of my daughters until their teenage years, and then enrolled them in school.  My children came first, always, so my lust for expression (which is terribly strong), often sat on the back burner until it boiled over. In my early 30’s I began to nurture it into a regular regimen. Found a feel and haven’t looked back. No more line cooking for me. I am too old for hollandaise. 

 

 

 

“KI + 2S -> KISS” 2014. Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24″

I believe that words and images are easily connected. Text, like anything in a painting, can be used to promote the painter’s propaganda. Craft and ability have their place, to be sure. But please make me think. I do not want art that cannot make me think! I have a television for that. 

 

 

“James Mott, Via PTSD, Mutilates Young Henry’s Politics” 2014.
Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24”

 

 

I like titles. It gives me, the painter, the last word. You want to see something else and not be told what I am thinking? Go make it yourself. 

“Nothing But a Stranger in This World” 2017. Acrylic on paper, 11 x 15”

The process of painting can bring temporary untethered freedom, the future promise of practice, growth, self expression, liberation, eternity in an afternoon, trancing, the joy of man’s desiring, judgment, forgiveness, laughter, and a very content and satisfied melancholy.

* * *

Ron Throop (b. 1967)

I am a determined man. Unlike Henry Miller who arrived in Paris at the age of forty suspecting that he was an artist but needing six months of stimulation-by-poverty to prove it, I have known all my life that I am another one in a long line, both ignored and distinguished, to have the (mis)fortune of that mysterious element “X” inside me. I am forty-nine years old, a dutiful husband and father, and dedicated practitioner of acrylic painting and self-liberation writing.

I live in a cedar shake cottage along the shore of Lake Ontario. 

All days I wake up with a charged exuberance and hope that begins to wane with the rising sun. By mid-afternoon I accept failure as a routine chore of this modern day art business. This is good. It keeps me upright through supper and doing the dishes. At dusk, after a long day of wonder and work in the studio, I take dreamy walks with my wife down to the lake. I am so lucky to have life and love even if career success is a crapshoot each year I come closer to the big sleep. Oh well. I paint. I write. There is always posterity to think about. Then night and gentle sleep and another day of sublime torture.

I have hundreds of paintings like these for sale, all very affordable. This year, believe it or not, I have become an internationally known painter. I have shown work in Moscow and St. Petersburg Russia and Liverpool England. I am a practitioner of the modern movement called Stuckism (look it up please), and its founder Charles Thomson has recently written that I am a key figure here in the U.S. My paintings are colorful, lively, of the moment, and affordable. I could even make them more affordable if you like me.

I cannot get enough of paint. I am the art crazy old man at late mid-life.

To learn more about Ron and his art, visit these sites:

Ron Throop Art

Ron’s blog

Round Trip Stuckism

Stuckism Invitational at Watkins Glen

 

 

“Always Six Seasons at the Table for the Magnanimous Narcissist” 2017. Acrylic on cardboard panes in old wood window, 34 x 36″

 

 

 

My Poem “Scarecrow Sings the High Lonesome” Has Been Published in Crannóg 45

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CrannogFront

My poem, “Scarecrow Sings the High Lonesome,” has been published in the summer issue of  the Irish journal, Crannóg, available in printed form only. Alas, I was unable to attend the June 30 launch at the Crane Bar in Galway. Maybe next time!

CrannogBack

 

Recording of Bottom, Falling

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bird silhouette

“Bottom, Falling” was published in Into the Void in October, 2016, and appears in my forthcoming chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for prepublication order at Finishing Line Press.

femas-mock-cover

My Writing Space

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I am fortunate to have a writing space of any sort, much less a comfortable one.

Shack X

This is the shack that launched a thousand rejections…or something like that. It’s small, with a 10 x 12 footprint, and is getting crowded inside.  The photo was taken in August 2013, a few weeks before the interior was finished out. Note the inspector, Jackboy, with his ball.

Shack 1

The most important feature of the shack is the air conditioner. The bookcases are nice, too, but the heat would be unbearable without the a/c unit.

Shack 2

Books keep migrating here. I wonder why. The cattle dog spent many hours in the dog bed, but the Chihuahuas prefer the house.

Shack 3

I try to use the available space as efficiently as possible, hence the skinny book cases. The painting is by Stuckist painter Ron Throop, whose art and words inspire me.

Shack 4

The desk is usually messier than this…

Shack 5

Birds often smacked into the righthand window, until I added the little mobile fabricated from a piece of cedar and wooden bird ornaments.

Shack 6

Yes, that’s a stationary bike. The good thing about having such a small space is that I can ride the bike and reach over for a sip of beer without having to pause.

Shack last

I’ve been banging on that guitar for forty years. It’s a little worn, but then so am I. The broadside is a Galway Kinnel poem, “Little Children’s Prayer,” which joins a small group of signed broadsides in the shack, featuring poems by Jane Hirshfield, Arthur Sze and Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge. Alas, I’m running low on wall space.

 

 

In Response to Nadia’s Misdirected Email, I State Exactly What I Am Looking For

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tulip

Independence Day. July 4. Perhaps amidst our celebrating we might consider what those words mean. Freedom has become more precious to me of late.

 

In Response to Nadia’s Misdirected Email, I State Exactly What I Am Looking For

Balance. The ability to stand on one foot, on a tightrope, and juggle AR-15s,
ethics and dollar bills, while chanting the U.S. Constitution, in tongues.

Or good health.

Unweighted dreams.

A mechanism for disagreeing without needing to annihilate the opposition.

Doorways without doors, truth without fear.

A simple tulip.

One word to describe that instant between thought and pulled trigger,
intent and wish, the elevated pulse and sense of diminished space and time.

Sanctuary. Regret. Apology. Respect.

A tonic to the bitterness, a foil to the sweet.

Fitted sheets that fold. Uncommon sense.

Love in the abstract. More bacon. Smiles.

A closet that embraces everything you place in it. Everything.

The means of unfiring guns, of reversing wounds to undamaged flesh,
and rounds to their magazines, full and never used.

Self-organizing drawers. Due process.

Mothers who know only tears of joy.

One peaceful day.

Just one.

lights n sirens

This first appeared on the blog in July 2016. The poem was a response to an email asking a question intended for someone else: “What exactly are you looking for?”

Sunday Compulsion: Khaty Xiong (Why I Write)

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Welcome to “Sunday Compulsion,” in which creatives answer one question: Why do I create? Here’s poet Khaty Xiong:

There are many reasons, known and unknown, as to why I write; I don’t like to think these reasons change necessarily, but rather, amass over time—no, maybe, these reasons refine over time. These days, I am writing a lot of elegies, so if I had to answer in the present, I write because it brings me closer to the dead, and being close to what is no longer animate, in whatever state or form, makes the pain that comes with loss just a little more bearable. Even death welcomes conversation.

Khaty Xiong was born to Hmong refugees from Laos and is the seventh daughter of fifteen brothers and sisters. She is the author of debut collection Poor Anima (Apogee Press, 2015), which is the first full-length collection of poetry published by a Hmong American woman in the United States. In 2016, she received an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in recognition of her poetry. Xiong’s work has been featured in The New York Times and How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology (Heyday, 2011), including the following websites, Poetry Society of America and Academy of American Poets. She lives in Gahanna, Ohio.

You may find Khaty’s books at the links below:

Poor Anima (debut): http://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9780985100773/poor-anima.aspx

Deer Hour (chapbook): http://www.thediagram.com/nmp/pr_xiong.pdf

Ode to the Far Shore (free, digital micro-chapbook): https://payhip.com/b/eHQw

Read a review of Poor Anima here.

Tupelo Quarterly recently published this review of Ode to the Far Shore and two other micro-chapbooks published in the Platypus Press 2412 series.

Visit the Academy of American Poets’ site to read this illuminating series on Hmong American poets, and to read and listen to Khaty’s poem, “In Mother’s Garden.” You’ll have to scroll down to find it, but it’s well worth the effort. And please read the rest of the series while you’re there.

The Fog (after H.D.)

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Man in fog

 The Fog (after H.D.)

I am dead.
You avoid me.
I open like a shell.
You expose me with your breath.
What am I, heartless one?

This was an exercise in which I used H.D.’s poem “The Pool” as the launching point. It’s fun and occasionally illuminating to try these. “The Fog” first appeared on the blog in April 2016.

shell