Another poetic tease

Yes, this is one of my lame posts where I tell you how busy I am and promise you the world if you'll just wait for it.

I do have several poems in mid-birth, and a number of other story ideas that are still only a twinkling in the eye of conception. I just need to find a life's time to sit at the computer and bang them all out.

Until the genius grant money comes rolling in, however, ample writing time isn't going to happen on a consistent basis. So, as a holdover I give you a tiny taste of the poem furthest along in my queue: 720 Clocks.

round faces and square

ornate and spare

one favorite embedded in

a black cat's belly
with tick-waved paws

and twitch-tocked tails

Fractured Foot, finally finished

Here is the colored and shaded iteration of my drawing Fractured Foot. Because of the more muted color choices, I don't think it's that strikingly different from the nude version that I posted a couple weeks back. It's meant to be a companion illustration to my poem Footsteps.

Argus & Io: Birthing a conclusion

This is the conclusion to my poem Argus & Io. It's a bit more open-ended than the original myth, but I always prefer ambiguity over certainty. Visual art next, so stick around.

Argus & Io
By Francis Scudellari

IV.

She,
twisted
metal dragged
in clanked tangle
behind, unguarded
ahead, halting first steps
toward un-purposed
paths that spoke out
a blurred wheel
beyond
her
sentry's
fallen-trunk
malodorous
conjuring descent
of cloud effacing pests
tasked by sky-seated
mistress to goad
Io on
knowing
words
non-sensed
by veined beats
a buzzed babble
of wing-confused flight
that leads still too-cowed thoughts
in mad-apparent
earthbound wander
to find love
birthing
time

Argus & Io: The watcher foiled

Continuing on, this is the penultimate part of my latest poem. I hope to have it completed within the next few days.

Argus & Io
By Francis Scudellari

III.

He
a-fog
spies early
morning ride in
rosy on curled backs
of a low-rising mist
pushed by one errand-
spelling breeze's
deceitful
lyrics
blow-
whispered
to drowse with
threaded tunes spun
by humming needle-
sharp leaves, olive clatter
drummed as owning twigs
knock, lulling shut
his hundred
eyes, close-
kept
charge loosed
in whiting
flash, thunder's clap
and Argus quick-caught
by writ-mischief's lean hands
foiling-wrapped within
tight, re-coiled tales
his never
slipping
free

Argus & Io, halfway home

This is the second part of my poem Argus & Io. It focuses on the female half of that mythical dyad. I don't know if familiarity with that story's details improves or lessens the impact of the my words...

Argus & Io
By Francis Scudellari

II.

She
ill-changed
by light, blind
rage-punishment
unearned for baring
another's intentions,
his wont of too much
never sought for
or seeking
her was-
nymph's
once so
sleek, well-drawn
lines pulled wide, smudged
till broken, transformed
to a dark spotted bulk
she awkward carries
on four legs, mind
always led
circling
back
tethered
to a gnarled
soil-clutching tree
with taut-stretched chain's forged
gray, heavy iron links
slow dragged, in-cutting
circumscribed arcs
through bitter,
narrow
blades

Argus & Io, Part One

This is the first part of my new poem inspired by another classical myth. To read a little background on the story that informed it, check out the Wikipedia article on Argus Panoptes (all-seeing Argus).

Argus and Io
By Francis Scudellari

I.

He
put on
cocky watch
towering stands,
long-reaching throws off
shadows of square-cut limbs
loose-draped in rough skin
to guard against
dawn's thick air
creeping,
chilled
his own
flagging strength
braced by sipped fire
sharpening fifty
paired eyes that monstrous ring
his still, uncrowned head
each visited
by just one
moment's
sleep
well-timed
in rolling
blinked-lid cascade
to stop-frame project
scenes from dewy-green fields
keeping a beast for
the jealousy
of too quick-
fading
robes

Flibber T. Gibbet

I don't know exactly how I'll use it yet, or whether it's even very original, but I'm considering building a series of short verses around a recurring character named Flibber T. Gibbet.

I'm envisioning a spritely young woman with the general appearance of my Feeling Green drawing. This is all a very sudden inspiration, so it's still percolating. I may even use her for something else entirely.

A naked foot first

I've been a bit busy and haven't set aside the time to finish up my latest drawing. I thought it might be interesting, however, to show off what one of my sketches looks like before I begin adding the colors.

Here's my "Fractured Foot" in the nude. I like the starkness of it, so I'm glad I can capture it for posterity here before altering it on the page.

Piecing together scraps

This is the first poem promised in the last post, albeit a bit tardy. I may yet alter it some, but I think it's mostly finished.

Stunning ephemera
By Francis Scudellari

His head open, unfolds...

Silk-tongue blossoms
lip-pressed snugly
between shuffled pages
with bindings worn
by salted drops
their liquid words loosed; a splashing
of seeded gusts

the handy, clipped moments...

Beading sounds dripped,
funneled, threaded
on dangled, thinning strings
that stretch too far
prismatic break
in many faceted spilling
of feathered light

black-white, pasted faces...

Eye-caught baubles
picked up and tucked
in pocketing cocoons
that ripen at
random ages
and burst forth in a clattering
of flitful wings

all collected, thought lost

His life's timing
a frayed patchwork
of ephemeral he
tattered-edge weaves
stitching a mind,
full of disconnected dreams joined
to memories

Teasing works in progress

Because my creative process is taking longer than expected, I thought I'd write a quick tease post about the work that's currently in progress. A poem I'm calling Stunning Ephemera is being built around the following lines:

Eye-caught baubles
picked up and tucked
in pocketing cocoons
that ripen at random ages
and burst forth with a clattering
of flit-full wings

The title is a phrase that quite literally popped in my head while lying in bed one morning. I have no idea what prompted it, but it struck me as interesting. Due to some strange serendipity I experienced around the writing of it, finishing this one is my current highest priority.

The second poem, Argus, is much less further along, but it's another of my attempts to modernize the characters from a classic myth. The idea of the watcher with one-hundred eyes has always captivated me.

Finally, I've begun a drawing inspired by my last poem Footsteps.

Footsteps, reworked

I re-worked the fragment from my last post, and I think this is how it will stay... a bit simple, but I like it.

Footsteps
By Francis Scudellari

A vision of footsteps
long ago's seeming faded
now beckoning, to-be retraced
with a trembling, unsteady finger

What if I was started tomorrow
anew by going back in time
to re-place myself then, first,
most, altar the future

Fragmentary pondering

While pondering things beyond my ken, perhaps too much, the following lines came to me. For now it's just a fragment, but I may some day soon expand on it.

I have a vision, of footsteps
long ago's seeming faded
now beckoning, to be retraced
with a trembling but steady finger

What If I were to,
tomorrow, start anew
by going back in time
and re-place myself, first

Feeling green

My latest drawing... not much else to say about it.

Another dream, another poem

This is another of my poems very loosely inspired by a dream. It's been taken out of that sleepy context, if dreams can be said to really have context.

Mismatched Messenger
By Francis Scudellari

A mismatch-making messenger --
its painted Kewpie doll's head
crudely glued to dovish body --
she frees from a tinfoil-wrapped cage

The bipolar-white wings outspread
to affect a slow-creeping glide
as this at-odds stranger descends
in clockwork-countering spirals

Its too pretty, rounded features
tooled on delicate ceramic
sharpen in edgy marked contrasts,
drawing never closer to me

The lifeless blue star-speckled eyes
string-pulled open by black bar brows;
the twin, red-dotted cheeks pushing
pursed lips not meant to kiss, but peck

Wire-thin, coiled pink talons grasping
a tightly rolled note, loose string-tied
and filled with her mock-poison words
penned at the tip of flaming tongue

The latest targeted missive
that it so precisely drops to
sweet trickle and prod me onward
in love bitterly imagined

Illustrative strangeness

This cartoonish portrait was meant to illustrate the line "flopped gold curls mopping a wide pink brow" from Oranges for Three Loves. It obviously took a bit of a twisted turn, but I'm growing fond of these imaginary faces.

Oranges, concluded with a dream

Finally, here is the last part of my poem Oranges for Three Loves (read the complete poem here). I may yet make some small changes to it, and please feel free to offer suggested tweaks. I should have another drawing or two based on it upcoming as well.

IV. Evening dreamed

As jagged-tooth fence-post's shadow lengthens,
a sudden unthinking appetite grows.
He grabs the last orange, gobbling it all
but a lone slick seed that sticks in his cheek

His magic seeming sadly lost, the kernel
he takes, finger-pushes it in topped soil,
then lays his head next to single-seed bed
and sleeps, drowsed by a soft-chirped serenade

That night, a tree sprouts of strange banded fruit;
perched among its branches, waking he spies
a fairy's green tossed locks, and dreamy she
with limpid hazel gaze smiles back at him

Oranges, Part Three: Pulpy Mess

Here's Part 3 of my poem Oranges for Three Loves. I'll have the conclusion up in a few days.

III. Mid-day Sun

Days left to his virtuous devices,
he fusses over the next, nails digging,
screw-cut peeling its thick rind, picking off
odd pieces of pith to smooth its surface

After would-be idol hours spent preening,
second love, an acid yellow figment,
floats down to him from distant high hilltop
her flopped gold curls mopping a wide pink brow

Fruit in palm extended, he waits his worth
while the orange exposed to mid-day sun
shrivels brown, a collapsed-in pulpy mess
that her passing wave topples uneasy

Swab of swirled scarlet

I don't know what the artistic merit of this drawing may be, but it appeals to me for some reason. It's a loose interpretation of the line "tall swab of swirled scarlet hair" from my poem Oranges for Three Loves.

Oranges, Part Two: First Love

Here's the second installment of my poem Oranges for Three Loves (Part I is here). I'm trying to do a better job of balancing the flow, imagery and word play. I too often sacrifice on the first. I have an idea for another related drawing that I'll try to post before Part III.

II. Striped Dawning

Home on morn's edge, a first love he soon sights
her narrow white face with blush-dabbed features,
the tall swab of swirled scarlet hair atop,
a bobbing tongue that bounces into view

At striped dawning, he, perhaps too eager,
reaches into his bag with halting hand.
An under-ripe gift he blurts out to her,
offered wholly careless, green-tipped, unpeeled

She takes it, and rolls it in slender hands
thumbs inspecting it, a bit misshapen,
bumps and crevices around knobby stem...
no fruit for her, nose upturned, she walks on

Unraveled