Cowboy Up, Baby
13
Category Archives: Business
Tense and on Target
Gleefully Grim & Wilfully Wicked
Toast with a Time Limit
Here’s hoping the missing good cheer
That should have been prevalent here
Shows up at the door, not another old bore,
Or I’ll have to be leaving, my dear,
For your party is killing my joy
And particularly, to annoy
Me: wasting my time with dull boors is a crime
I’m not quick to forgive, my dear boy.
Coming-Uppance
Relegated to the lowest
Rank of feebleniks and fools,
I can see my betters’ failings
And their breaking of the rules,
But I keep my quiet counsel,
Counting nothing disconcerting,
Never flinch, for I remember:
Blackmail can be quite diverting!
Emptying the Vessel
Under my penitential veil,
Blue-socketed and ashy pale,
I genuflect and toll my faults,
Demurely dance a pious waltz;
I bend and bow and pine and scrape,
Dressed in hair shirts and chains and crape,
And when my guilt’s no longer sore,
I’ll dash right out and sin some more!
Close Shave
The opportunity occurs
So rarely, it is true,
That I can scarce resist the urge
To put my hands on you
With malediction in my heart
A glacier in my veins
A purring curse through smiling fangs
And voltage in my brains
That perks nefarious Nemeses
Like me to work your doom—
But I’d be left too much bereft:
No You to hate? Then, whom?
Fishing Expeditions
I *know* I came in here for something . . .
Even those not in my Age Group (i.e., old) have had that irritating experience of going into a room and having no clue on arrival what they intended to do once there. I just have it more often than most. I’ve had it more often than most since (ironically) before I can remember. Thank you, short attention span and daydreaming obsession. But I’m kind of used to it, even if it’s still a little frustrating in the moment. I just have to go on lengthy mental fishing expeditions to try to recapture those slippery thoughts that had swum on through, not stopping quite long enough to satisfy the need of the occasion.
Surely I have mentioned here more than once that I have made many an artwork with fish as topic or, often, as random interjection. The piece above followed my work on a series of icon-like works, so it started out as yet another saint-with-a-halo sort of thing, but then these fish came jumping into the frame and suddenly the whole storyline veered off in a completely different direction. So I guess it could be said to be a perfect self-portrait in that way. Then again, maybe it’s still a good metaphor for a so-called Saint, since from what I’ve read and heard and been told, very few of them ended up doing ‘what they came into the room to do’ in life, but rather got knocked off course and went on other tangents.
That’s reassuring in its way, but it doesn’t fix my problem of forgetfulness or lack of focus, now, does it. There’s certainly no surprise in our forgetting a thing or two over the course of a lifetime. The batik-like little image below (with fish as its subject, in another shocking development) is not only a picture of a sort of trademark type of tale but also has my characteristic style of line, textures, and composition. But darned if I can recollect when, where or for what purpose I made the piece. I would not have known I had made it if it weren’t for finding the photo of it when it was hanging on the office wall of a company for whom I made a salmon-centric exhibition because they had a facilities grand-opening celebration in which they wanted to emphasize their commitment to saving the native Washington salmon runs not protected by similar companies’ practices. Oh, yeah–that was why and when I made the work. What happened to it later is another question, though the company did end up buying a handful of the shown works to keep in their buildings after the exhibition, so maybe it still lives there. But clearly, I’m not the one to ask. I just don’t remember stuff like that. I get a thought; it shoots off into deeper waters.
Hmmm, what was it I was talking to you about? Oh, well, maybe I’ll come back to it later. Maybe . . .
I'll be thinking of you . . .
Ah, Youth!
Perspective–it’s so much a matter of perspective when we assess the situation, isn’t it. My sister’s younger son once had a moment of imbalance and tripped, not quite falling but giving the smallest yelp of surprise as he righted himself. His brother, two years his senior, rolled his eyes and sighed ever so indulgently, ‘Ah, Youth!’
Big brother was four years old.
There’s a lot of value in considering others’ point of view, not least of all when it happens, in the literal sense, to be at the same level as one’s own knees, or the top of the kitchen table. The whole world is remarkably different from such an angle. People treat us differently, expect different things from us, more often require time and patience and wisdom to interpret our words and ideas and actions.
We assume, quite rightly, that the young require this sort of accommodation and flexibility in our conversations and interactions. How much more so, then, should we be willing to see the universe more clearly through another’s eyes if we can consider him equal to us in age, experience, or status. We are all children in other people’s worlds, when it comes right down to it, barely able to see over their windowsills or fence-tops, hardly understanding a word of their language even when the speak, it seems our own. We’re none of us so truly far past two years old, apparently.
Art-Colored Glasses 