Io, Mid-transformation

This is the second illustration I've done for my poem Argus & Io. It depicts the nymph Io as both woman and cow. I like the way I interpreted her bovine side much better.

Newspapering, and self-promotion

As I may have mentioned on this blog before, I've been working with some friends to get a small newspaper off the ground here in Rogers Park, the Chicago community where I live. We're still growing and improving after 7 months of learning on the job.

In the current issue, which hits local newsstands tomorrow but is on the Web now, I contributed an essay of sorts that I find quite amusing (yes, shameless self-promotion to follow). It deals with the joys of jury duty and draws from my literary past. It's called One Day, One Trial, One Bounced Check. Here's a small taste, but please do read the whole thing if you find the tease worthy:

On a crisp early morning last April, I made the trek down to the Daley Center to perform a civic duty that fills most Chicagoans with more dread than pride. I had been summoned by the Court to sit through a process of jury selection that seems patterned after the most angst-inspiring metaphors of our best existential writers.

Our County of Cook has christened its system “One Day, One Trial” based on the fact that you need to endure either a single day of rejection or the more dire sentence of empaneling on a single trial’s jury. The solitariness of the moniker is fitting, as the whole experience engenders feelings of isolation and anxiety.

Two Souls: New Hair

Continuing on where my poem Two Souls takes me, this is the fourth installment. I've decided to subtitle each part. In case you haven't been following along, the first three parts are I. Exile, II. Slow Drift, and III. Fleshy.

Two Souls, Twin Lives
By Francis Scudellari

IV. New Hair

On nests spread far between
parallel paths
These two of never's name,
a restless lie,
let time's shortened shadow
fall across bald,
scaled shoulders, its darkness
seeding new hair
and cunning to endure
seasons become
changeling, drawn to leafy coves
where they gobble
shoots that taste of lost light

Two Souls, Fleshy Promises

This is the third installment of my latest poem, which I think may grow past my initial imaginings. The developing story is gaining complexity in my mind.

Two Souls, Twin Lives
By Francis Scudellari

III.

Then removed, with miles lapsed,
separate sames
each stubby-leg crawl up
on greening clumps
of floated rock and root
that warm harbor
creatures also exiled,
bumping along
blindly to seek their like,
prodded past sleep
by hints of shapeless eterns
traded for fleets
of fleshy promises

The illusion of time

Catching up on my New Yorker reading, I came across a passage from Salman Rushdie's wonderful short story In the South that held particular resonance within the context of my previous post on Biocentrism. I'm likely assigning it a different meaning than the author intended, but regardless of that, it's a lovely piece of writing.

In the front yard they paused briefly by the golden-shower tree that stood there. They had watched it grow from a tiny shoot to its present sixty-foot grandeur. It had grown quickly, and, though they did not say so, this rapid growth had disturbed them, suggesting, as it did, the speed of the passing of the years. The Indian laburnum: that was another name for it, a name among many names. It was konrai in their own, southern language, amaltas in the tongue of the north, Cassia fistula in the language of flowers and trees. “It has stopped growing now,” Junior said, approvingly, “having understood that eternity is better than progress. In the eye of God, time is eternal. This even animals and trees can comprehend. Only men have the illusion that time moves.”

Briefly back to the philosophical

Interrupting my in-progress poem Two Souls, I want to make a more-than-mental note of a couple ideas brought to my recent attention. Each hearkens me back to the series of posts I began a few months ago (and unfortunately dropped due to distractions) regarding the necessity for a new 21st Century Ethos.

I'll try to incorporate both into the continuation of that discussion, which I hope to pick up again very soon.

First, there's a very interesting article in June's Wired Magazine, which features a discussion of the New New Economy. The article is called "The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online." Its title is sure to provoke a negative response from Americans who for sixty years have been taught to recoil at the mere mention of the "S" word. Getting beyond that first reaction, it's very much worth reading for its examination of the new forms of social media and how they are creating a greater tendency toward and preference for collaboration and collective action.

The next idea that caught my fancy is the concept of Biocentrism that a friend referenced in a Tweet last week. Below is a passage pulled from Wikipedia that lays out the main points, but I encourage you to read the full article on Biocentrism:

According to Robert Lanza biocentrism has seven principles.

1. What we perceive as reality is a process that involves our consciousness. An "external" reality, if it existed, would by definition have to exist in space. But this is meaningless, because space and time are not absolute realities but rather tools of the human and animal mind.

2. Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different sides of the same coin and cannot be divorced from one another.

3. The behavior of subatomic particles, indeed all particles and objects, is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer. Without the presence of a conscious observer, they at best exist in an undetermined state of probability waves.

4. Without consciousness, "matter" dwells in an undetermined state of probability. Any universe that could have preceded consciousness only existed in a probability state.

5. The structure of the universe is explainable only through biocentrism. The universe is fine-tuned for life, which makes perfect sense as life creates the universe, not the other way around. The "universe" is simply the complete spatio-temporal logic of the self.

6. Time does not have a real existence outside of animal-sense perception. It is the process by which we perceive changes in the universe.

7. Space, like time, is not an object or a thing. Space is another form of our animal understanding and does not have an independent reality. We carry space and time around with us like turtles with shells. Thus, there is no absolute self-existing matrix in which physical events occur independent of life.

Two Souls, Exhausted

This is the second part of my latest in-progress poem. I finished composing it while sleep-deprived, so it may not make much sense.

Two Souls, Twin Lives
By Francis Scudellari

II.

Their arced escape route etched
with quick silver
on velvet, ends tap'ring
to finger tips
that will trace a path back
one day, but now's
distance exhausted, they
splash in blue soup,
swirled till cooled in a cup
of moth'ring clay,
and, nourished on forgetting,
grow buoyant limbs
to slowly drift apart

Two souls, at first birthing

This is the first part of a poem that I'm currently working on. I'm not yet sure how large it will become, but I'm expecting at least three more parts. 

Two souls, twin lives
By Francis Scudellari

I.

Two souls, twin lives conceived
and long dwelling
within the mingling storm
of light and dust
that delicate danced 'round
goddess sisters'
gaseous split-crown heads
until cast out,
paired molten tears spit-shed
in the blinking
of ageless eyes, not angry
but grown weary
with the weight of shared lids

Many-eyed giant

This is my attempt to depict Argus, although I'm quite a few eyes short. I think that I erred on the silly side with this one.

720 Clocks, in full measure

This is the full poem that I teased in my last post. It's a long one, which I'll use as my excuse for it taking some time to finish. Please let me know if you can easily understand what's going on in the narrative.

720 Clocks
By Francis Scudellari

Seven hundred nineteen
clocks plus one new-bought she
loving cups in pale hands
before it takes its time-
saved place among pieces
atop two dozen shelves--
blond-skinned particle board
framed by squat book cases
that dust-free stand before
her, patient for this day

Clocks with wood-grain finish,
cased chrome, or dyed plastic;
topped with never clanked bells
or kid's cartoon figures--
an endlessly spun chase
round faces, oval, square
her favorite tight sealed
within black cat's belly;
tick-waved paw, twitch-tocked tail
each short minute stroking

It's a lucky number
A very special time
When you can make a wish
For anything you want, and
it will come true , some day...

The mothering low words
circling back, she surveys
her measures collected
for four and twenty years
stretching from right to left
Each now properly wound,
batteries freshly charged
to call up magic twice
this day, filling it full
of her wished for minutes

Whether old-time displayed
by mismatched bandy lengths--
pointed, ornate, and spare
that sweep ever forward
through inward notched halos;
or mechanical marked
between flipping black tiles;
or more modern counted
by re-posed bits of eight
light arranged from behind

Oh. But is it the time
that's very magical,
or the sight of numbers
all lined up, standing tall,
each pointing at the sky?

Her childish answer swings
upon her as she twists
the gray ridged, clicking knob
of the purchased blue cube
set one minute before
its right-neighbor to form
a well-tuned chorus of
seven hundred twenty
clocks to barbed-ripple read
eleven: eleven

This last one pushed into
its first awaiting slot
she sits, slow scans the shelves,
a day's worth of wishes;
the same whispered, wanting
words that she will repeat
one thousand, four hundred
forty times, in constant
chanted hope for lives lost
by four and twenty years

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.