December 31 -- Molly Neely

I, America (John Fredrick Kensett, Mount Washington)

my hills roll here and there

wavy fields of golden seed

the scent of my breeze is clean

whistling Dixie...

or Yankee Doodle Dandy

my crown covered with snow

glistening and deeply cold

I prepare next year's streams

or perhaps, this years flood

my forest is wild and free

man and nature in sync

a place to forage the flora

or pit strength against the fauna

my wide open spaces are inviting

firm and stable ground

where you can raise a barn

or raise your sheep

my eagle watches over me

a strong and defiant countenance

willing to take any risk

in order to keep you free

December 30 -- Sarah Thursday

Jigsawed

I am missing too many pieces

my pieces are broken

my pieces do not match

I am pulling pieces from my mouth

wet and teeth-bent

my pieces fit nothing

I am turning over the edges

over and over and over

my pieces are dizzy

drunk-stained and torn

I am scraping off layers

of Disney-glossed pictures

my pieces are spit gray

my pieces fall behind

tables and wall benches

I am pieces glued on

I am pieces shoved in

I am pieces forced together

pieces and pieces and pieces

all Picasso and bent blue

Inspired by “Weeping Woman” by Pablo Picasso

http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/art-movements/cubism/picasso-weeping-woman.jpg

December 29 -- Daryl Belcher

Jackson Pollock on Autumn Rhythm

  

With a drip, and adrizzle

Pollock flows in his artwork

in his mind, dreaming of 
abstract design

As we dance to the rhythm
with streams of blacks and 
browns like he understood the 
painting to become his vision

The patchwork drips
and the melody 
rendition he paints 
the catastrophic

folds in a gentle array
reminiscent of his form
as we know not what to 
believe, yet we know little

beyond the pain
men have endured
Ego performed in the 
light we see as

suffering of man
longing to free
the insanity of the 
abstract into a reality

of the darkened mind
As we hold on to what
is real like Jackson Pollock
saw in the reversed field

a better side than 
what is normal
He could see the 
obverse angle 

the thread of pain
causing the blend of 
suffering like the 
changes of the world 

as we are 
outside looking in
gazing at the drips
and the drizzles

December 27 -- Jerry Garcia

Underneath the Gil Turner
Liquor Store Sign
          After Nighthawks by Edward Hopper
 
 
Bourbon skies slop
morning boulevard
            erections.
            Plaza Towers glinting sunrise.
Nighthawk’s blackened pupils bulge,
            and wince.
 
Graphic-wrapped panel trucks
screech Jimi Hendrix cat calls
through a spew of black soot
            muffler tar.
            A trampy chorus paces
cross-street corridors
            of shadowed bushes
                        and trash cans.
 
            Ten hours before
            Nighthawk telephoned a spousal deception
                        about working overtime
                        with calculators and ledgers
                        and a boss screaming orders
            plausible disguise for an impending debauch
                        in a city darkened
                                    like Bald Mountain.
           
            Fractal colours
                        brake lights      neon signs      
                            and advertising placards
            escort Nighthawk to his mission.
 
Non-melodic thumping reverbs
sweaty perfume swaggers
                        at a club discreetly called The Body Shop.
 
                        Discordant concertos exploding cocaine addled brains
delirium collateralized
in the nakedness of dancers
            with tedious personalities.

Tiffany offers
            her oiled and sparkling breast
            and Nighthawk drifts farther
            from the quietude
            of home-cooked family life.
 
The chapter might have ended
            several hours later
                        in the glass-tabled penthouse
                        where card-sharking schemers
                        appropriated the electric bill funds.
 
            But the 3 A.M. ATM
            printed green money
                        for another run of 
                                    Nighthawk’s bad luck.
 
                                    He drops the bills
            picks up the cards
            and seizes hard in a glare
            of perspiration
            and high altitude
            nose-bleeds.
 
Pre-morning
            tarmac vapours confound
                        raw eyes.
            Nighthawk seeks
                        the vehicle left behind,
                        his battered sedan lost, not stolen
                        not towed in the night
                        —just parked in the wrong
                                    dog stained alley.
 
 
            His skulking silhouette
monkey jumps a cig,
shakes its head
and folds
into the ripped vinyl
driver seat.
            Amber car-lights
process like the pilgrims
            of Fantasia.
            Ave Maria echoes remorse.

                        In the traffic of the boring,
rested employees drive
            to their first-shift time-punch.
 
                        Nighthawk guns his engine forward.
 
            When he steals into his own condominium
for ablutions and coffee,
he ponders his angelic spouse
asleep on cotton sheets;
the gut punch reality
            of children in the nursery.
 
            Tooth-broke and greasy,
Nighthawk chases the workday.
He throbs like a freight train
            on scrappy rails.
Disguising shame with mock efficiency,
            he sweats a job of punching numbers;
dozy excess of last night’s gluttony
            repeats in columns and rows
                        of balance sheets.
 
           Through zeal and sweat
work is done:
Perfected, folded and filed
inspiration of presentational success.
 
At quitting time
the city prepares
            nightfall.
 
            Elevators full of happy-hour lightweights
unfold into marble lobbies
revellers spill onto grainy concrete
heading home to fast-food suburbs. 
            Cars congest the highways like trails
                        of  shimmering swag.  Leaving the party behind
                                    for the natives of the night. 
 
            Tired and cranky
Nighthawk wanders the variegated streets
                        of perdition.  Craving silence
                                    and reprieve from the din.

                        At the all American Diner
            Nighthawk shares repentance
                        and another cup of coffee
                                    with fluorescent strangers.
 
            Through stencilled windows
the golden gloaming cityscape
            enchants the Nighthawk
                        like a pair of legs
                           and a cheap bottle
                                    of hooch.
 
 

Edward Hopper “Nighthawks”       http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/111628

December 26 -- Jerry Garcia

I Found My Friend Richard In A Painting from the 17th Century
After Jacob Duck's Street Scene with Knife Grinder and Elegant Couple c.1655

In coral tones of sunset
and nobility
stands the elegant couple
of Utrecht
gazing with circumspect
sneers.

The master craftsman, flamboyant
in burgundy and green,
leans against his stone wheel
taking pause from the day's toil
to roll eyes and groan                                                                       

at the riff-raff cast into coppered shadows.
Darkened figures of scoundrels
hold court among fishmongers
and butchers.
Porcelain-faced girls laugh,
an old woman raises a boney finger
while a crooked-mouth prankster
jeers.

My friend, Richard,
ruddier than usual
in this 17th century tableau,
stares deeply into my eyes

as he would often do.
His puckish grin punctuates
what I already know.
The secret of his time travel
must be ours to keep.

Jacob Duck "Street Scene with Knife Grinder and Elegant Couple"   http://collections.lacma.org/node/232605

December 25 -- Jerry Garcia

Desert Moon
After Lee Krasner1955
 
In your Desert Moon,
the black slashes
the yellow and the ruddy. 
Paper caked in hardened oils
and ripped to hang
like shirt tails,
crumbles from the weight.
 
Your brush strokes red
like words splattered
over jagged particles
severed so carelessly
my head bows
to the coarse and dark.

Lee Krasner “Desert Moon”   http://collections.lacma.org/node/155457

December 24 -- M. S. Rooney

“Forest of  Fontainebleau”

            Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña, 1867

Viewed at California Palace of the

Legion of Honor,  San Francisco

                                               

This skein of sunlight

unraveling the curves

of the dark earth

between the light trunks

draws my eye

within,

through the canvas, until

what I started to say to you

I do not know, only know

it now seems

quite uncertain,

not quite true.

Originally published in Theodate, Volume 1, No 2, 2012

Link to image of painting: http://art.famsf.org/narcisse-virgile-diaz-de-la-pena/forest-fontainebleau-1991117

December 23 -- M. S. Rooney

Oranges in Tissue Paper

oil on canvas, William J. McCloskey, ca 1890

Viewed at M. H. de Young Museum, San Francisco

Longing for harmony,

I am drawn to the glow

of these seven oranges

resting on a polished tabletop

before the sheen

of a plush blue-black drape.

Three are wrapped in splitting

bright white tissue paper,

three are unwrapped, whole,

one has the skin slit

into six pointed segments

peeled back to reveal

the creamy white pith clinging

to the soft, just opened

orange inner flesh.

Yet this harmony of forms

will not stay still, will not

be held by canvas or by frame,

but spins in the eye, turns

in the chest, a movement

gyroscopic, as un-

expected as

a stolen kiss

that startles and then vanishes,

yet cannot be undone.

Link to image of painting:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27Oranges_in_Tissue_Paper%27_by_William_Joseph_McCloskey,_c._1890.JPG

December 22 -Lavina Blossom

Grandma Was a Cow

            inspired by Dee Marcellus Cole’s sculpture

No brisket, which is that hanging

skin below the neck.  My grandmother

had one.  But this Grandma’s gaunt

and bug-eyed, two long

skinny legs in small boots.

She’s also cloaked and winged,

donning a mask on her head

like a grinning cap.  A smallish fellow,

wearing a sombrero, his body shaped

like another cow’s head, drapes

down her back, and yet another guy

nestles in his hollowed-out gut.

This grandma has layers.  She’s

complicated.  Mine was, too, but kept

her demons better hidden.  No bright

south-of-the-border ensemble, no array

of patterns in oranges, pinks, purples,

vivid blues.  No attention-grabber, my Gram.

She kept her head low, while this one

stands right up straight, a life-size

candelabra adorned with wicks, daring us

to strike a match.  But we can’t set her on fire,

or all these teasing hints to her mysteries would

disappear in smoke and ash.

Lavina Blossom

http://www.lavinablossom.com/blog/dee-marcellus-colesculpture-by/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LavinaBlossomArtBlog+%28Lavina+Blossom+Art+Blog%29

December 21 -- Chris Swinney

Manhattan For Mel, Michael Flohr.

I once believed glass more powerful than

what it held. Yet wheat, water, and spices, 

cause me to lick my lips, eager for the first 

smooth pull. Classical lines embody character, 

which cradles the vice. A true whisky aficionado 

craves it, hears the calling. It’s where tradition 

and timeless stories bend, take their own shape perhaps, 

intertwined with the heat. I added two Maraschino cherries 

today. I imagine them swirling around the cocktail glass 

as our passion often had done. Each deliberate stroke 

stokes memories of times we sat together, eliminating 

all other stimulus around us, so that her eyes held 

what mattered. And, purple, her favorite color, soothes

the amber contrast, drives a bit of the bitter away,

inviting me to embrace the past, looking toward our future.

Tonight, the bottle remains un-opened, seeking a new dance partner.

 http://www.peabodyfineart.com/flohr/floh13972.htm

December 20 -- Molly Neely

You Swear (Anna Althea Hills)

the sun skips merrily on the waves

while the trees sway lazily in the breeze

the call of an unknown bird echos in the distance

you swear you're standing at the edge of Heaven

the surf cries out its aquatic roar

and crashes against the ancient sand

with the scent of the sea pooling in the grass

you swear you've found the paradise lost

cool mosses creep out on the branches

and dust the air with its sticky pollen

minerals glisten on the face of the rock

you swear you've discovered a secret garden

shades of green melding with blue

the earth's veins running deep with gold

the Perfect Hand of God is before you

and you swear you've finally come home

December 19 -- Joan Day

       looking for the light

On Astranomelly by Micheal Carini

…and in the beginning  the heavens

opened and an orchestra of light

was suddenly pulled into a 

void of space and this void was 

so forceful that the rays were 

trapped until they ricocheted off 

the horizon and were hurled outward…

 

my life sparkling with brilliant color  

when I was first drawn into your force  

so strong   so powerful I lost myself

gradually becoming a small particle of 

some unobtrusive matter  as my dreams

stars in the distant sky   scattered

quickly   collapsing while I was 

championing a false god

building my world around you  

building universes around you

until spiraling back to reality 

I uncovered the strength within me

to take back my dreams and discover 

my destiny

Joan E. Day

October 31, 2015 

December 18 -- Joan Day

       Panther  Panther

Panther, Panther Blake burned black

who designed your head your back

powerful muscles  telling tail

your strength cementing your roar your wail?

traveling quickly to disguise

the emerald sparkle of your eyes

sleek and dark   quick   ready to sprint

rarer than obsidian glint 

what habitat in which you preen

ghost of the forest seldom seen

what great force allows you sway

to roam the woods   to ambush prey?

stealthily quiet you cautious cat  

agile as an acrobat    

endangered is your pseudonym 

cleverness your right to win 

ferocious in your attitude

who directs your soul, your mood

springing playfully in the swim

or carefully leaping limb from limb? 

Panther, Panther Blake burned black

who designed your head your back

powerful muscles  telling tail

your strength cementing your roar  your wail?

Joan E. Day

October 24, 2015

December 17 -- Chris Swinney

Let It Ride, Michael Flohr.

We hadn’t pawed felt in quite some time, 

my father and I. He’d embraced retirement, 

simple yet busy times, and I’d commissioned 

too much work. I spent what I had left with

my wife and kids. Wives at a concert,

kids with a sitter, and we drank Maker’s Mark.

The spirits, laughter and high-fives, skittered across

the room Cirque De Soleil-like. Drifting moments

find the table, chips stacked neatly, while Blue 

Eyes has both of our toes taping. An ace of 

spades comes off, followed by the ace of 

diamonds. Pops’ grin suggests I won’t split. 

“Split ‘em,” I boast. I hit. Another

ace. Crowd gathering, he shakes his head.

“Hit me,” I say, letting whisky call my shots.

A final ace falls, the joint erupts. Bullets

across the table, eyes wide, and my heart

rumbles like the first time I saw her. 

 https://piccadillys.com/flohr/let-it-ride-by-michael-flo.html

December 16 -- Diane Kendig

ON CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI’S LESSONS OF DARKNESS

 

   The difficulty of picking out details rhymes with the difficulty of insight

   into the past.                                     --San Francisco Chronicle

 

i.        Les Archives

 

We step from the streaming sun of California

to this dimness the lessons rely on.

Tin biscuit boxes gleam and frame

three hundred photos, enlarged and blurred

beyond recognition under low watt spots

connected by tens of wires hanging like

sloppy nooses.  A caption asks what became

of these Jewish classmates in Vienna in 1931.

ii.       Reserve

Around the corner hang other questions.

A wall, say thirty people wide,

a story and a half or two tall,

draped ceiling to floor with children’s coats,

“not with thrift-store effect.”

Each coat waits, empty of its particular child.

We move out to an interior stair,

find it narrow and sepulchral. 

iii.      Angels

The Angel of Accord and the Angel of Death,

each the size of a long-fingered hand,

rotate round a light in the darkest room

where their shadows loom huge above our heads

and endlessly crisscross the four spaces.

In a side gallery tiny Klee-like figures quiver

at a small fan’s wind and cast

stick-people shadows that shudder on the wall.

Published originally in the chapbook, The Places We Find Ourselves.