fried pickles

Through the muddle of too much vodka
I vaguely remember Natchez's gleaming lights
across the tumultuous Mississippi River,

the multicolored bulbs along the docks with
neon extolling catfish and fried pickles,
and I recall the sun biting into the horizon

and odd pairs of lights nipping at each other
hurriedly on the bridge that always scared
the crap out of me whenever I had to cross it.

I remember the dissonant hum of cicadas
clinging to cypress trees, and the sultry
heat following an abrupt rainstorm.

I also recall how you turned so sadly
and walked out of my life, taking with
you all I had known of recent life but alcohol.

At the time I couldn't retrieve what I had just
lost; I was too far gone into my alcoholic
addiction to realize how our lives, including

our children, had just changed so dramatically.
and now they could only be mine sporadically.
However, with the passage of all these years

I no longer wish for the life I once had, especially
that terrible compulsion toward self-destruction
which brought us to the divergence of our lives.

I no longer reside along the river, no longer
hear the tugboats as they ply the changing currents,
and strangely I no longer remember your face .

.

melancholia vs. the muse

EARLY AUTUMN SUNRISE

12x16 oil on linen panel

A tonalistic painting in the tradition

of the early American Tonalists

This is one of my favorites - just like the feel and emotion

provoked by the sodden foreground, the birch trees beginning to

color out, and the pale sunrise beyond.

I have a real problem with winter, as many of you do, and I find it hard to keep my creative juices flowing when everything about me is gray and dismal. Perhaps gray and dismal relates to a frame of mind and not an actuality, and perhaps I need to rethink my attitude when winter rolls around again. At present it would seem I need color and fragrance about me to give me that delightful impetus to paint or create poetry (both such as they are).

It seems I was born with a strong thread of melancholy running through my veins - my mother was depressed most of her life, her father committed suicide by hanging hmself in the barn for his children to find him, and my great-grandfather drank poison and died in front of my grandfather. Saying this, I have never felt suicidal and hope I never do. What I feel in such times is more a lack of motivation, the "doldrums", the "blahs" - nothing I can't work past. Someone commenting recently on my poetry blog -http://www.thecrowandthemoon.com/ - said of this tendency:

"There is this artist within you,
and this other-knowing, deeper-connecting,
artist, has been nourished by your genetic
melancholia-depression tendency/gift,
to seek expression in lovely poetry and painting...
he would not exist without it.

But what a trade-off it has been!

We, who are lucky enough to enjoy your art,
surely benefit from your 'curse',
and we hope that you realize the 'blessing'!"

Today, standing in the spring sun with lilacs and fruit tree blossoms weaving an enchantment I absolutely love, it's hard to recall the melancholy, or at least that part of melancholia that suppresses joy and the creative juices. So, I'm heading out to my studio with thoughts of several large aspen paintings in mind. I'll update on my progress.

Your friend - Warren

Under construction

Forgive me - this blog is under construction and I've been devoting most of my blogging time to my other blog - the crow and the moon. Give me a week or so . . .

Summer aspens

a summer recollection

-

For some unknown reason I was attracted to
Mike's friendship - probably more the lifestyle
he and his mother lived than anything. It was
bizarre. Mike's mother operated (is that the
proper word?) a whorehouse in a hotel
on the corner of Shoshone and Second
in my hometown. It was a shoddy hotel back
then and remains so to this day. I've driven down
the alley and the red light has been removed.

Although I was only about 12 years old, I hadn't
necessarily led a protected life and I understood why
men occasionally came through the back door, below the
red light, stopped at the top of the stairs, second floor.
They'd ring a bicycle bell screwed to the railing
and wait for Mike's mom to usher them down a
hallway wallpapered in red paisley. Mike and his mother
lived on that floor - I think his mom must have owned the
place. She acted like she did. Mike frequently liked to
shake things up, and would throw firecrackers down the
hallway after some guy had started what he had
come after. To this day I don't know if Mike's
mom was a servicing prostitute or just the madam
but she beat the crap out of Mike more than once.

Mike and I loved to hang out on the roof of the hotel
in the evenings when things got pretty hectic inside.
We'd spit on the shady characters who were always milling
around outside the hotel, or throw water-filled condoms at cars.
One evening Mike hung his penis over the edge and pissed
on a couple of guys. Mike had balls, I'll say that for him.
Across the street was a Chinese restaurant and I loved
the smell of egg rolls and fried rice mingling with the
smell of asphalt in the early summer breeze. Weird
combination, I know, but it's the stuff memories are
made of. And I suppose it contributed to the
mystic I felt about the Madison Hotel. I lost track of
Mike over the years, wondered if he still lived with his
mother in the Madison Hotel. A few years ago I heard
Mike was killed when he got drunk and fell from a window
of the hotel. I could just see him leaning over, pissing
on some old man. Yep, Mike definitely had balls.