Tag Archives: Gothic grotesqueries

Pretty Beautiful

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Of course I’m vain. I would love to be thought of as a great beauty. Not that many people on earth could probably say with full honesty that they wouldn’t like to be thought attractive and compelling and engaging in the slick social way, no matter how sincerely they live the principles of much deeper character. But, that confession aside, I can also say that I am not so exclusively vain that I mind having others be indifferent to, or even dislike, me. Let’s just be realistic enough to say that that would be beyond impossible.

digital artwork from photos

Take a good look at MEEEE!

So I really can’t have too many qualms about making fun of myself and exaggerating my own failings and shortcomings and even pasting on ones I don’t think I actually own, if it buys me any artistic pleasure. After all, there’s a bunch of fun to be had in clowning and playing characters and being someone or something new and weird and ridiculous. There are reasons we still have art and theatre and fiction all around us. It’s amusing to make the stuff and amusing to see what others have made.

digital artwork from photos

I’m pretty fabulous no matter what you see!

I guess that makes me a cheap sort of witch or magician, maybe, when I’m making up my fictions in visual and verbal imagery. Kind of a fun vocation, when I get to play at it. Abracadabra, here I am for your amusement. Poof! Now it’s your turn.

Tiny Terror

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digital artwork from a photoHummingbird Unmasked

My beak’s a single fang I sink in artery or vein

And none suspect me of this drink but clinically insane

And paranoid-type fantasists whom no one else believes

When they accuse the pretty bird that flits in flowers and leaves.

Though tiny as a bumblebee, I may grow round and bloated;

The nectar of your heart is how I keep my Ruby-Throated

Good looks and family heritage (and, not the least, my name),

My shapely belly and my speed of flying fast as flame.

It’s not that I’m nefarious, invidious or rude,

But merely that I have a taste for human blood as food,

And do not fear: I’d never kill you outright when I dine—

Far rather sip and savor you as vintage claret wine.digital artwork from a photo

 

Competitive Edginess

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Who really wins or loses when there’s a competition of sorts in hand? Seems there’s usually ample opportunity for both sides to get the better of each other, and even more so, for both to end up battered and belittled by the ordeal. I’m all for battling against one’s own failings and worst characteristics, but by George, I’d rather not have anyone else taking advantage of my myriad weaknesses. I feel a certain–possibly smug–contentment right here on the sidelines, watching all of the other snarling and smirking dupes work themselves into a froth by attempting to best each other all the time, knowing as I do that as long as it is a competition, somebody’s bound to come out on the bottom of the stack.

graphite drawing

Join Me for Dinner

The beast that ate the hunting dogs

Was fatter than a hundred hogs

But oddly still was hungry when

The hunters chased him down again

So dinnertime—you’ll be delighted—

Found dogs and masters reunited.

digital painting from a drawing

Whistle a Happy Tune & Sit in the Catbird Seat

About six million starlings

Roosting on the overpass

May pass the evening pleasantly

By dumping on the grass

While singing chirpy little tunes

Of evening’s charming cheer,

But just remember their first task

If you should drive too near.

Their cat companions lie in wait,

Meanwhile, beneath your couch;

When you come home, they like to roam

Right in your path, then crouch,

Paws up, complaining with a scream

If you should chance to trip

Upon their fine reclining place;

They’ll fly right off to rip

That couch to ribbons, smithereens,

On this remote pretext,

And if you scold or turn them cold,

They’ll turn and rip you next.

Someone to Watch *All* Over Me

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[In a Really Creepy & Inappropriate Way]

Thought I was your stalker, violent,

Sneaking on you, ninja-silent,

Pervert peering in your casement,

Clear from attic to the basement,

With my satellite trained on you

All the way from where you’ve gone to

From my distant lair? I’ve got you

Hid from trouble while I watch you–

Baby, you’re not scared now, are you?

I’m just trying to watch out for you;

If I didn’t, who could keep you

Safe and sane, awake, asleep–Who?

I’m your hero, watching closely

So you won’t become morosely

Sad and spooked at all; to

Keep you safe and sound; I call you

In the morning and way later

Just to keep away the hater

That might try to nab your collar,

Take your keys, your watch, your dollar,

Keep you sleepless, full of sorrow–

Sleep tight, Babe! See you tomorrow.

P&I + digital

What, *me* scary???

Pirates of All Sorts

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graphite drawing + textAlways Someone Else’s Problem

‘Twas the pirate Rumbustious Rudy

Who felt it his life’s work and duty

To divest someone’s self of his piffling pelf

And retain the remainder as booty.graphite drawing + text

Uninformed, or Old and Infirm?

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Or just uniformly old?

Does it matter? Not much; never mind. As it happens, I was a little hazy to begin with, so there’s not much worry about the old marbles disappearing. Who really needs marbles anyway, except for a game-playing champ or, say, Michelangelo. For me, the touch of lunacy just adds a little color and a lively element of surprise to my everyday existence.pen & ink

Scaredy Coot

My fears are principally these:

Of sharks, the dark; of killer bees;

Of speeding cars and drunken louts

That race them through the roundabouts;

Bloodsucking leeches; of the kind

Of beasts that populate my mind

In doctors’ offices; of tests

That only earn me second-bests;

And most of all, I fall in tears

Lest someone should unmask my fears!

 

Beware of Bad Luck & Worse Deeds

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mixed media sculpture

If you can’t make a grand entrance, at least try to make a spectacular exit . . .

Talk about Relief!

The way my insurance is freighted

With small-print and guilt, and prorated,

I find that this chick

Who can’t risk being sick

Can afford to be

Decapitated.

digital painting from photosCampfire Song for the Unwitting Centerpiece

Singing silly campfire songs, we sit at either side

Across the pit and toast marshmallows, making note how wide

And high the flames can leap at will, and thinking if they might

Be quite sufficiently stoked up by middle of the night

To throw something substantial in to roast before the dawn,

Perhaps a certain someone here we’ve finally settled on,

Whose camp-songs so annoy us; cook to ash before next day

Our deep-disliked camp counselor: our own auto-da-fé.

mixed media sculpture

Why, certainly, cabin-master, Sir, have another toasted marshmallow! Here, just lean over a teensy little bit closer . . .

The Stench of Doom

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Breathe on Me, Breathalyzer

What is that sulfurous smell?

Is it the mouth of Hell?

Or is it only Morning Breath?

With you, I cannot tell.

oil pastel on paper

Through mystic haze and mystery,

Through funky dark and gloom,

Throughout the house and yard and park

And to the edge of doom,

It penetrates both brain and soul

And harries unto death—

Begone! foul demon, Hell-bound hound,

And take your stinking breath.

oil pastel on paperTake Thou Thy Hindmost Hence-ward

If thou must wind down, go downwind, please;

I’ll remain up here while thou tak’st thy ease,

for I’ve found if a lady’s downwind of thee, she’s

immediately an endangered species.

Unforgettable and Inseparable

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watercolorSince My Beloved’s Death

Since his death, my cryptic lover has arranged my life right over

Into something odd and eerie, weird, disquieting—I’m leery

Not of ghosts, spirits, phantasms, or of devils’ arcane chasms

But of gaiety and sunlight and those things that once were right

For breathing life into old souls—now my new kinship is with moles,

Uncanny, strange, peculiar, creepy, and with bats, with creatures weepy,

Wailing, enigmatic, curious, with things dark and dire and spurious—

Now, unnatural and bizarre unsettling things surpass by far

Those former comforts and delights that soothed my days and lit my nights.

With my lover’s jarring death came an uncanny loss of breath

That turned my sense of truth elastic, to include the strange, fantastic,

Doubtful, worrying, portentous and the puzzling, the momentous—

I have seen since that dark minute all the sinister things in it

Turn to lovely deviant longings, love of the aberrant, wrong things,

Something like a lust for sorrow and disgust for growth, tomorrow,

Or any such former hopes—now esoteric isotopes

Reflecting what I once desired, but with a twisted, counter-wired,

Left-handed version of the past. At this I might have been aghast

Before, but now it’s all I crave, since both of us lie in the grave.

For that, you see, explains my ache for things outlandish, no mistake:

That when my late beloved died, I did so too; am at his side

Within the crypt, where our decease no more is strange or ominous

But makes it plausible that I should love the darkness where we lie.watercolor

Gleefully Grim & Wilfully Wicked

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mixed mediaToast 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.photo

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!mixed media

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!photo

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?