Inner Beauty

I live in an old mans skin
there in the roots growing  beneath the surface
 in secret,   easy in the warm around
intertwined,  with the serpents'-  red eyes peering out      ever watching
safe in the fear of other
we mean no harm . . .
Venturing out once for solace but finding that protector is all--
each is all
I cannot help your belief comforting though is "other" and a better place.
More secure is settling into us all
giving up, conceding breathing
  To knowing and peace

Legend has it that  while Siddhartha Gautama  ( ~ 563 BC) was meditating, a fierce storm arose of which he of course was unaware.  The Naga (snake) Mucalinda rose up from beneath him  spread her  wide hood and protected him from the ravages.
Serpents are typically protectors (save for the Eden metaphor where the serpent was evil.)
In a dream,  snakes are said to represent the creative urge toward wisdom and is a neutral symbol -- for which it  is up to us to assign a slant.

This poem came of a dream I had where the serpents were there in the dark waters but posed no threat and seemed to be protectors;  if anything I felt secure.  I still don't know what to make of dreams and all I can tell of them are the feelings and reactions I have to them and the impressions left.
 Probably no archetypal significance whatsoever to most of them, just flashing brain releases at night.
  But you never know . . .

Inspiration

So how long you have been deserting this pen
To hold and write the stories that keeps you alive
The tangling words where you loved to un-puzzle
That once it was a necesssity
But now time to write seems to be a burden
Now the stories are no longer need to be written
For all what shapes in life, are the breathing stories
The jotting down are no longer narrate the facts
The sound of breath, aren't captured within lines of words
Then silence hush fails to be described with words
For a momentum of silence described in words
Is nothing but loud words evaporating essence of silence
The truth is the pen is just kept there untouched
In fear that inspiration will not rise
Also unable to give it a try for the fear of failure


This with permission and by the pen of    Nasra Al Adawi
a blogging friend who lives in Oman on the Persian Gulf

Writing about not writing . . . 
She certainly does a better job with English than I would with Arabic

Inspiration is breathing  in ~ ~~ Expression is breathing out.  A natural and necessary process.
 I am inspired by images.  Not so much for prose but to try the obtuse metaphoric language of poetry.  I can obscure direct meaning with the best of them in an attempt to expand a thought or feeling  -- allowing a deeper meaning, we hope . . .
I am not so good at the prose: the structure, the prompts for genre, word limits, and topic (1500-word Fridays, etc).  But many are really good at this as I have seen expressed by others here on the blogs.  Must be different parts of the brain involved, the obtuse ammaglia rather than the frontal contextual pocket for example . . .  whatever they be called ?  A break from my logical-mind numeric/engineering training allows the connections which are dusty and untouched for the most part.
Although, how better a metaphor for weather patterns, dissipation of heat from an engine, predictions of human activity,  or flight of the predator drones   than the equations, mathematical models or anecdotal evidence which attempt to describe those realities?

But a question must result:
What could be the best inspiration?  Walk on the beach, trip to the moon, night at the tavern, visit to the gym, a person's statement,  photos and images,  trip to the desert,  or ?? 

Night Roads

I would hate to redrive those miles
but knowing where they ended up made them worthy
trips to new places, usually at night to feel the cool and the quiet
thrum of power gliding us along staring ahead, thoughts drifting
then settling in to the numb meditation
necessary to drive five hundred miles at once.

Roads usually taking us to places we didn't know we wanted to go.

                                                       Ansel Adams  Road-Nevada

No passing -- you must stay and appreciate the view.

"How many times must a man look up
before he can see the sky?"  (Mr. Dylan)

LivingSpaces

This is the studio of Francis Bacon, artist, 1909-1992 originally in London but totally moved to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, Ireland his birthplace.  The following  wording from the Hugh Gallery is a better description of the relocation activity than I could ever put together:


"The Hugh Lane Gallery removed the contents of Francis Bacon's studio at 7 Reece Mews ,London, in August 1998. This operation was conducted with the assistance of a team of archaeologists who mapped the space, and tagged and noted the positions of the objects. The reconstructed studio features the original door, walls, floors, ceiling and shelves. Over 7,000 items were found in the studio and these were catalogued on a specially designed database before their replacement in the studio. The Francis Bacon Studio Database is the first computerised archive of the entire contents of a world ranking artist's studio. Every item in the studio has a database entry. Each entry consists of an image and a factual account of an object. The database has entries on approximately 570 books and catalogues, 1,500 photographs, 100 slashed canvases, 1,300 leaves torn from books, 2,000 artist's materials and 70 drawings. Other categories include the artist's correspondence, magazines, newspapers and vinyl records."



He was not a particularly neat person and was never married -- big surprise!
I don't much care for his artistic works; they appear to be reflections of the disorganization in his life, or at least in his studio.  More on Mr Bacon  here.

This is one of the more appealing (to me) of his works.  This  could hang on our wall for awhile, probably in a hallway, where it wouldn't become tiring. That criteria seems to be how I would judge an artistic work: how long could I look at it without it reaching the point where I would no longer see anything new in it.

 This sepia photo by Timothy O'Sullivan about 1872 when he traveled with an expedition to document and explore the western lands.  I like the hats they wear (where did those come from); and the bow and arrow of the guy in the front row.


Some libraries I have been in offer "art" on loan.  Seems like a good idea although have never done it. How about a hanging frame which could display selected pictures, or even moving designs as with a fractal presentation ever changing in color and evolution.  Ultimate impermanence . . .  .

I wonder what would be the factors in deciding what to put up on the wall and how long to leave it there?