Posts by Arts and Culture El Dorado

Dark Rough Memories A tribute to Claudine Grantham   All the manufactured items of the world Last for a while and then are randomly swirled By human tossing or Nature’s elements Into time’s rivers, there to be sediments Seen on beaches, shores, lots, and hillsides strewn, And what once was cut, planed, formed and careful…

Cenotaphic Ana   No, this isn’t where she’s interred; Here you see a mere cenotaph Of resin, wood, and gauzy cloth That’s but a monumental word Declaring she walked and was A combatant in life’s long war And now she’s buried evermore.     Anton Z. Nemeth Ana Revisited, 2001, Mixed media

Thoughts About A Memorial Montage   No, this is not where she’s interred. This is but a pale cenotaph That signs toward what’s referred. We do not know what rock or tree She’s deep or shallow buried by, Or in what fresh green meadow damp Or desert dry with shifting sands. Neither have we facts…

Stormed Out   Turbulent sleep hocked me up On this beach, my usual Bed, amidst the dry tangled Waves of dream tossed percale sheets And that lying comforter That failed its one yclept job.   The islands of my pillows, That might have been lamely grasped In unconscious dreamy frays With squiddy nightmares chasing, Unlike…

A Midwife’s Memoir Penned in Tears What cruel adulterate alchemy Did torture this alembic, thy womb! Were not the frost the bane of elder days? Not so, alas: The winter’s droplet hath Betimes imbued thy still‐distilling spring, And given unto budding life A deathly flowering.   *** Some of these words are archaic. See this…

The Container Speaks I am the vessel the earth beneath her feet the one you came to see   I am forged of sunshine my golden exterior emanating warmth to comfort and protect   I am fashioned from linen and glue Painstakingly molded, layer upon layer With a gaping maw in my center   I…

Perspective Am I in the womb or a coffin? Am I about to be born or buried? Am I hemmed in by these walls or protected by them? Is this my prison or my place of safety? Is this a window to my soul? Or am I simply on display? Am I vulnerable in my…

Just off the Trail She walks thru a tunnel,              portal to a different world where she disappears up hardpan paths.   Woodland textures Aae speaking to her hands, bare branches she’s lined up for a fence   camo’d by straw sunburned brown, lumber once a door now a bed for sleeping, salvaged cast-offs.  …

Puzzle   Every one leaning into the yoke, their shod feet indispensable to the surviving hole.   Both of them waiting beneath the curved blade, its hammered form a question unspoken, always known.   As if a double fan made for two hands but too ponderous to lift to summon a light breeze. Bits and…

His Face   Must wood and metal hold him together, hold his face inside themselves? But see how well-worn weaves of fiber stretch, reach with frayed edges seeking to join the unyielding with supple fabric of life. Cracked, 2006, Mixed media