Shiah working on his new bar in Winthrop. The Copper Glance. Opening maybe in May.

Starting them young.

Artistes

The Artistes!  Memphis on left, Eason on right.

Memphis paints a leaf and sun

Eason's dynamic expressionist painting #1

Eason's forceful, gorgeous painting #2

Posing

Eason and his friend Memphis paint beautiful artworks in my studio.

Charles Takes a Break

Charles relaxes poolside in Arizona after escaping for a week from the Ann Arbor deep freeze.

Lookout Mountain

Julia and I took a little stroll Monday to the waterfall in the sun dappled forest of Lookout Mountain. 

March

Eason eyes the Anacortes Refinery at Bayview beach one lovely evening

Waiting for an oil train to pass in the night

Reworking a flower bed

Planted:  Calla lilies, irises, Crocosmia, and two mystery plants

A new bed for my Colocasia plants.  ("Elephant ears"

Burning a years worth of yard waste, prunings, clippings

Elegy with Surrealist Proverbs as Refrain

By Gioia, Dana


"Poetry must lead somewhere," declared Breton.   

He carried a rose inside his coat each day

to give a beautiful stranger—"Better to die of love   

than love without regret." And those who loved him   

soon learned regret. "The simplest surreal act   

is running through the street with a revolver

firing at random." Old and famous, he seemed démodé.   

There is always a skeleton on the buffet.


Wounded Apollinaire wore a small steel plate   

inserted in his skull. "I so loved art," he smiled,

"I joined the artillery." His friends were asked to wait   

while his widow laid a crucifix across his chest.   

Picasso hated death. The funeral left him so distressed   

he painted a self-portrait. "It's always other people,"   

remarked Duchamp, "who do the dying."   

I came. I sat down. I went away.


Dali dreamed of Hitler as a white-skinned girl—

impossibly pale, luminous and lifeless as the moon.   

Wealthy Roussel taught his poodle to smoke a pipe.   

"When I write, I am surrounded by radiance.   

My glory is like a great bomb waiting to explode."   

When his valet refused to slash his wrists,   

the bankrupt writer took an overdose of pills.   

There is always a skeleton on the buffet.


Breton considered suicide the truest art,

though life seemed hardly worth the trouble to discard.   

The German colonels strolled the Île de la Cité—

some to the Louvre, some to the Place Pigalle.

"The loneliness of poets has been erased," cried Éluard,

in praise of Stalin. "Burn all the books," said dying Hugo Ball.   

There is always a skeleton on the buffet.

I came. I sat down. I went away.




Dana Gioia, "Elegy with Surrealist Proverbs as Refrain" from Interrogations at Noon. Copyright © 2001 by Dana Gioia. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.

Chickens

We went to the Annual Edison Chicken Parade yesterday.  Lots of people lining the short main street, for a totally silly Welcome to near-Springtime, and enjoying the sun.

I texted Lori as to why she didn't come and she said, "  Yeah, was dying to see chickens on leashes."  and "I think an adult dressed as a chicken is slightly creepy! I found videos n YouTube of it last year.  Funny!  still cracks me up.  One guy was walking it like a dog."

Here's a few photos. Will see if I can get better off Julia's phone with the real chickens.