The Lexicon Artists

We talk around the large turquoise bowl  pouring in vowels  and consonants  filling its emptiness with questions voided by time and silence. I leave the bowl and you  in this gallery  of azure dreams letting dawn bind me to the morning  and to your loss.

2020 - Year in Review Pater Familias Fav H Show: Haikyuu!!   H has been into this for a while, and we started watching this together recently.  I really love how the show emphasizes friendship and teamwork.   Fav J: J's gotten into these videos of kids playing with their toys, but the upside is that they inspire her to play with her own toys. Fav New Food: During the summer M cooked food from different countries, and it was amazing, especially the Cambodian dish ( Amok Trei ) she made. Fav Date Night Outing:  Because of COVID19, we ordered French cuisine from La Fresa Francesa in Hialeah and ate it in our backyard.  Magnifique!   TV Fav Thing Netflix Show:  The Sarah Cooper Special Everything's Fine completely captures the mess that was 2020.  It's like a two-hour meme that is relentless but hilarious. Fav Actor: T'Nia Miller in her role as Hannah in The Haunting of Bly Manor.  Her performance was as beautiful as it was haunting....

  The chicken lays stretched out on the cool grey morning pavement of the turnpike. Its white ribs are exposed to the new sun, and its still eyes uselessly stare at the violet and azure sky filled with multi-tiered clouds. Five minutes from now Willie will drive past the chicken. He will slightly jerk his steering wheel to the right to avoid the chicken because he a) doesn't want his wheel to touch dead flesh and spatter remains onto his undercarriage. . . b) someone somewhere told him that santeros (or is it brujeros ) leave chickens on the road to transfer the sins of a client onto the person who touches it.   If Willie would have been paying more attention, he would have recalled that someone somewhere specifically mentioned that the dead chickens are always left at intersections or crossroads. He would have also recalled the importance that crossroads have been given.   It is on the crossroads that you decide where you will go with your life. It is there that, w...

XXXI (At Hospital.  P.A. System announces " Code: Blue in Emergency Department.") Me:  Somebody's day just went to shit. Camus's Stranger:  Man, that's not even funny. Me:  Wasn't trying to be... XXXII Sherlock Holmes:  What happened to your eye? Groucho Marx:  My daughter poked it really hard. Holmes:  That sucks. Marx:  Nah, it just fulfills the axiom in my life that every female that I know will eventually hurt me. Holmes:  You're such a drama queen. XXXIII Electra:  The least he could have done was text me on my birthday. Eugene O'Neill:   Why do you even care? Electra:  I don't... O'Neill:  Then why are we talking about this? Electra:  Because it would have been a nice gesture to show that I'm a blip in his life. O'Neill:  The sooner you realize that you're nothing to him, the better for all of us. XXXIV Apollo:  I can't help but hate myself for having f...

Dialectical Dialogues I-XXX (more or less...lost 9-18 along the way) I Jill: Who the fuck do you think you are? Jack: You remember those stories your mom used to tell you, like Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs? Jill: Yeah, so... Jack: I'm the Wolf. II Jesus: So you're telling me that everything that one says has already been scripted in their mind? Buddha: Right. Jesus: So ever word that's coming out of my mouth has resounded somewhere in my subconscious. Buddha: Actually in the Universal Subconscious. Jesus: That's bullshit. III. Achilles: Count Dooku is not Sith! Hector: He is. He is the apprentice to the Sith Lord. Plus he has the red lightsaber. Achilles: How is an old man an apprentice? Dooku is just a Dark Jedi. Hector: Then why does he constantly addressing Darth Sidious as, and I quote, "My Master" ? Achilles: Whatever... IV. Roger: So what do you want to do tonight? Jessica: Whatever you want. Roger: How about bowling? Jessica...

Transmigrating Dream - July 18, 2008 ...you pray for rain...I pray for blindness "We are things made of wonder." Night:   In the beginning, there was water, lots of it.   Rushing in over fences, through windows.  Water penetrating as only water does, and the whole time I can't save anyone.  I strategize, first to go high, top floor if possible...it doesn't help.  The sea rises, the wave crests, and we're all washed away.   The second time I tell them to head for the vault, which is waterproof.  This time we feel the water hit, but instead of a mad rush, this time the water trickles in through the cracks, slowly filling the room.   The last time doesn't make sense, I'm on a trolley that is acting as a boat; I can tell from the rocking side to side.  There's only one other person in it. She holds out her hand, and I am offered a choice. Day:   In the bookstore I'm trying to keep up with Helene,...

IX. The Sin of Difficulty the cartographer of the heart needs a piece of caramel parchment course but constant the size of the universe with all its creased edges and an obsidian inkwell austere not obsolete holding the silky volume of the night with its lingering litany of stars

Fav Film: The Muppet Movie - it brought back all the joy I felt as a child...I'm so happy that I got to share the experience with my daughter! Fav. Actor: Peter Dinklage on Game of Thrones- his depiction of Tyrion Lannister is something truly amazing. Fav. Director: Tarsem Singh ...for his use of color and sweeping establishing shots in The Fall Fav TV Show (Cable): Game of Thrones - Few shows, and narratives, have the guts to cut off the head of the protagonist midway through the season...Winter is coming, and we are so not ready. Fav TV Show (Network-kind of): Walking Dead - the ending of the midseason finale left me stunned...literally...few shows pull that off. Fav Series from across the pond: Tie- Doctor Who and Luther - Bow ties are still cool, and Idris Alba owns the titular role as a damaged DCI. Fav. Helene Quote: "Actually, Dad,..." She's way too young for the back talk. I'm in so much trouble when she becomes a teenager. O.o ...

ink in clusters black like little spiders tangled fumbling out of my month backward weavings which I pry apart bleeding black, elastic words festering foul in their gesticulations spelling out the one thing that I want even though it will burn me until I taste of ashes and wistful wasted webs

Note:  This was written between 2003-2004 and was an attempt to fuse some motifs from David Lynch and Thomas Pynchon.  At best, it's an exercise in auto-erotic asphyxiation between Love and Death.  At worst, it's a waste of time.  Either way, my apologies in advance.   I.  He never really wanted this, this simulacrum, this dust on the mirror, this wet kiss on parched skin.  He wanted nothing.  He wanted an empty stage that echoed this life.  He wanted a shifting of feet, pattering around under empty eyes.  He wanted a cry to relinquish the void, to cast away the light and force the line to break.  He wanted vows to hold as a torch.  He wanted to establish a false dichotomy, a false solipsism.  But he never really wanted this.  II.  There is a distance between visions, a gap that forces us to mourn the reality of space, of tears, of false names.  She dances in this space.  She does this becau...

[Note:  Something I drafted 12/31/2011 but forgot to post up.] I was going to write something about how the highlights of 2011 really gave me new perspective on life and my place in the world, how they taught me that at my age I was still capable of change, and how joy and happiness could still find new places to take root...and conversely about how the low points of 2011 had the potential of etching a shadow on my days to come, a shadow that I'm not sure I'd ever be able to cast a light on. ...but I wanted to avoid the sentimental, so I thought I'd try to write something punny, with airy alliteration, like "titular trappings tend towards troublesome times" or "linear lunacy lends life limited longevity"... ...but I didn't want to sound too frivolous, so I went with something more stoic, something to do the old gods of the North right: "In this last year, my head didn't end up on the tip of a spear, and my heart didn't end up n...

a splatter of empty chairs   outpace a pattern of voided steps hands hold up my head up           hold up a gaggle of gasps               grasping oily, unwashed hair I want to outpace it all      all the tremored sighs      all the wash-cloth stares      all the hands silent                 outpace the fuck of it all

Here are the three picks that AJ selected from last month's blogathon.  Enjoy: 1.  Scald   It all happened in one second.  I was getting my strainer ready to drain the pasta when the pot slipped and I got a good splash of near-boiling water on my left hand.  Funny thing is that it took me a few seconds to realize what had just happened, but once my mind wrapped itself around the pain, I immediately ran my hand under cold water.     Once I had dinner ready for Helene, I put my hand in a bowl of cool water (after reading that it was not good to ice the hand as it hinders the flow of blood).  The burn was not too bad as long as I kept it in water, but the moment I pulled it out of the water the pain kicked in.   Helene looked up from her dinner and asked, "daddy, are you going to lose your hand?"   "No, love, it'll hurt for a few days then heal up," I replied.   "Oh, if you had lost it, you could have gotten a hook like C...

[In my Creative Writing 2 class, I had students do the Jim Simmerman's 21 Little Projects activity in class.  As they were writing, I decided to jump in and write with them.  Here's what I came up with.] folded an avalanche of angles numb to the glue smelling of shimmering shivers Betty Davis in blue unwrapped blaring over a speaker ¿Sak pase? Mailed under the table "Because he did" Sloppy brick of acceptance laying a disjointed foundation Betty Davis in blue overalls "Vitico no oye" "You're going to get lost in that mess again." squelchy pen mark ergo: all barks are just ripples "N'ap boule" the paper reclines and naps lulled by its lupine ways

Zombie Haiku 1 Crimson leaves flutter rotting flesh still walks on earth our autumn begins Zombie Haiku 2 Atlanta at dusk Their empty moans fill the streets Can't wait til winter

Press The fire burned more than anything she had ever seen, more than anything she had ever felt for him.  The metal in the aluminum barrel pinged and clanged as she tossed another book in.  She started with his collection of classics, offering Homer, Virgil, and Ovid to the flames.  How he loved his books.  He once told her that he could only ever really trust words.  She should have read more into this statement.  She leafs through Dante before tossing it into the miniature inferno.  Looking at the simple ring on her finger, she thinks of how strange it will feel not wearing it, how the pale white band of skin will eventually be fed by the sun and tan.  She grabs the Chaucer and Shakespeare and throws them into the old metal container.  As dusk settles in, she knows that he will be home soon, so she speeds up the pace, fueling the flames with Cervantes and Quiroga, with Garcia Marquez and Voltaire, with Delillo and Proust,...