lost my mind
I am the body
of a severed head
A divine vessel
the core of the apple
caving into itself
To understand myself
I know not the feeling
only the head rolling
the soft rumble leading
my blind footing
I am a severed body wilting
a dying impression of what was
before the decapitation
Slim evidence of intimacy
between a mind and a beating heart
And so it begins,
with the catch
in the throat
loosened
with the fumble
of mental
fingers
with the faintest
creaking
of hinges
and the holding
back of myriad
treasured secrets,
threatening to
escape untold
at slightest
opening
with a film
of sweat flashed
upon the palm
and forehead
crinkled,
with color
in the capillaries
creeping up
like tell tale
quidnuncs
with brows
that lift the lids
of eyes
with cautious
advances
that reveal
as many questions
as answers,
high lighted
in the margins
with the
girth of night
and spell of
morning
with and
without warning
in the comfortable
silence that was
adequate
in itself as
much as it was
disconcerting
with beating
in the Temple
keeping time,
with a reset
fastened, on
the
Conversation
...folding and
unfolding...
it has begun.
12.12.2023
And so it begins challenge @dctezcan
O…Here..Comes
Happy (almost) holiday season folks.
If you have the time to please feel free to enter the comedy challenge below.
Many thanks & lookin’ forward to readin’ what is created in the Proseverse.
O … Here .. Comes
https://www.theprose.com/challenge/14382.
December 11.12.2023 Mo(o)nday
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zmNG56GBs68
#OHereComes.
The Viewfinder in a Clear Frame of Mind
It is exceedingly difficult for me to unravel this topic on the monetization of art of any kind. Earning one's living by one's artwork has a dangerous way of draining the joy from life. Not always, but more often than not. The pressure is more than most people can bear. I'm not sure either that it is in fact all that desirable for salesman and artist to coexist--- though I do seek in myself for the two functions to find an honorable compromise. No small task. Understandably, we want a recipe for success or at least a list of necessary ingredients. I can only offer this most general observation for moving towards that general creative goal: that we enjoy where we are going, and how; wherever it is; whoever with, and how ever it ends. A living portrait of artistic integrity--- To this effect, I have written a few conversational vignettes, between an old and young artist.
* * *
"Baby, you can't let them know how fast you work."
I couldn't understand at first. It wasn't that I was proud. Just honest, I thought.
The painting took me 15 minutes.
"If they hear you can do it in 15 they'll expect it in 5. It's human psychology, to low ball."
Oh. I was disappointed. But ambitious. I cranked out three more.
It took me 15 minutes total.
"Good, babe. And it looks like three different artists. Bravo! now you're getting it."
That was part of the plan, in the design studio. Everything was made anonymously, signed with Studio Name, and we had spread the rumor about Associate Artists.
"Wow look at these, Constance!"
"Oh, Judith, my these are so different. Who made these dear? And where?"
"Thank you. Our Associates at the Studio."
"Oh, really, how many artists do you have with you?"
"...depends on the season. We have more in the Summer." Two. And sometimes just me. In the winter. Big, beautiful, tireless smile.
* * *
He lit his cigarette, and leaned back against the corner of the deck where the varnish was drying on our artwork. The first stars emerging above, and early gnats, everything a fresh wound for bandage. A team effort, each week, start to finish, though each of us had areas in which we pulled more, and everything came together late on Fridays for early Saturday morn.
"You know you're the face, right? and I am... the patron, behind," he said, cracking a restrained grin, in nature with his reserve and humor.
"But we work together..."
"Of course."
"I prefer to work behind the scenes." And I know he did too.
"This is survival. The fittest don't pick their roles. They perfect them."
It seemed a large load to carry, several people on one back, but one I could see he was willing to carry, in turn. More than his fair share.
"I understand." I understood that he enjoyed his role as idea man. The title producer has an incongruous meaning.
"Nobody buys from a tired out white man. That is not a winning story."
"Story?"
"Baby, people don't buy things, for things. They buy the experience, the narrative thread that will elevate them in the eyes of their families or compatriots. The extra something."
"Like when people say, you have to have a gimmick?"
"Tsk. More than that. It needs to have an unquestionable truth. A happening."
"But Art is already....illusion... no?"
"Yes, that's what makes it so damnably difficult."
* * *
"Baby, we will never make it if we insist on the one-of-a-kind."
"But we have always rejected mass market." He shook his head. Time, time.
"A good idea is a good idea. One worthy of multiplying, by whatever mechanical means."
"That's a lot of pressure..."
"The good idea? yes, but if you're looking, eventually we might find it."
"And if we stop looking, we won't even know if it passes us by?"
"Exactly right. But we start small."
I wrap my arms around his neck and shoulders, "One corner of the sky?"
I can tell he's pleased, like a street performer busking an appreciative audience.
"Something we can put on a cup."
I want to cry, but,
Why should I?
When the only one who sees
Is your God above the sky.
But the only one who sees
Is really only me
When I look into the mirror.
And it's only when I talk to you
When I feel a bit better.
But what costs is due,
And I don't want to seem bitter.
But I care too much I'm boiling
And I just need to simmer.
I love you. And apart of me is shamed.
I can't fully say my past relationships are to blame,
I've always been this way.
I just hope we at least stay friends
When it comes to our final days.
To the Prose Community
This isn't my usual writing but...
This community, this entire community itself, are the most hurt, yet the most blessed people I've ever seen. All of you guys deserve a hug---a giant one---because some of your writings just hit too close to home.
Who hurt you this time?
The fact that some of y'all relate to the most hurtful, heart-wrenching, and the most emotional writings out there just proves it all
She Carries the World
She cradles the deserts, scorch marks and blisters paint her arms.
She cries out the oceans, her eyes unseeing from the salt.
She holds the forests in her palms, tree roots piercing skin and bones.
She breathes the wind, gasping wails of pain.
She bears the mountains on her shoulders, bones crushing under solid rock.
She wears the sun upon her head, her hair catching fire.
She supports the ice in her middle, her heart frozen over within her ribcage.
She leaps from star to star, her bare feet cut and bruised from foriegn cliffs.
The Mass
As a general rule 7v7 refrains from tagging, as i aim not to irritate or annoy.
As a general rule, because I post only into challenges to keep my wheels geared (geared not greased), i make a habit of noting the @ proser as a credit and record for the source of the inspiration and prompt. If he or she is looking to read and respond to their challenge entries, they will find me; no need to Nag is my thinking.
That is in response to Do I Mass Tag?
And as for being tagged, i love to be It!
...joking aside, it's nice when someone wants to share or engage... when i work up the nerve, I sometimes tag a specific proser whose challenge inspired something for me which i subsequently posted, outside the deadline, hence not in the challenge itself. But, one tag as you can see, does not make a Mass... however...
I felt so Honored when @Prose included me in The MASS tag... as a fact I had been posting almost daily since mid 2020 and suddenly a week or two ago, i saw 7v7 added to the long list of esteemed prosers. Well i felt I had finally Arrived.
...and it weighed on my conscience that my daily posting had flagged. For very valid and temporary reasons. But the tag made me feel no longer as a small, isolated satellite, but a recognized part of the bigger machinery!
A person can't read Everything Posted on Prose. Wonderful writes inevitably fall through the cracks of inattention. But if there is a tag, a link is made, automatically in the News Feed, where it remains infinitely and can be retrieved anytime one logins in. That connection is a very nice thing. It's a link between readers and reads. A very important thing. Arguable more important than "exposure," though doubtlessly tagging more folks will tend to accomplish that goal and will hopefully lead to interesting conversation and invention.
07.21.2023
Thank you for tagging! Challenge @voiceinthewind