I want to overload it with detail so much more than when I started her in Sweden. I want to push myself to where I surpass what 'I think I can' do. Also, their is more to the image  than what I shot here. Sorry about that I was pressed for time. You guys will see her in her entirety when she's finished anyway ;)

~ Also some good news, my writing will be published in a book this winter! I will have details later for anyone who is interested ~

Storm-less Storm
0930.2009

To look at you
A sorrow breathes beneath my breasts
Where the arms of my ribs meet and cradle
My heart that bleeds like red leaves
Ruptured from their wood fountains.
Down my life leaks in its autumn
Landing with barely a whisper or splash
Upon the old cheek it almost warms,
Then leaves weaving strings lead to the cold earth
Where my almost dead feet must walk -
Their ash skins warmed in sorrows threads.

My existence is this way
Each day the same beginning
Each day the same pain
Breaking from its branch
To drift downward, to seek your hands:
For in your hands, my safety.
You, the earth I curve to
The land I cradle myself in
The bell from which I sing.
You, with your skin of white milk
And eyes like a sad storm lost in its life.

Heavenly body fallen from its sky, still proud:
My king, though nobody sees your crown
Or the red carpet you must step upon
As you go from sunrise to sunset
Proud, bold, noble -
Yet I see what you hide from artless eyes

And this bleeds me most:

That in the third season of my life
As I watch you greet the day that kisses
Your mouth of good words for everyone -
I love you while unable to say that I love you,
I love you unable to look I love you in the eye
And though I don’t know how or why
I love you, usually when I think I don’t
So that when I feel unsure you love me,
I love you the most.

My earth, life, king,
My pain, storm-less storm
The eye of my love
The love of my eye.

I love you.

Marni©
.................

Been working, work work work, more work -
it's what I understand, it's what I love. A female
flowers, trees, life, art, my own breath.

This poem inked itself late in the night after playing in my
thoughts throughout my steady hand's work day.

Rock
0903.2009

So alike you and I

One
Hard
Grey

Of many strewn

Traced years putrefy me
Immeasurably minute me

Gravity draws down
Steep
Sloping
Burying

Winded

Missing in clouded wilderness
Gone in miles of barren wasteland

Won’t step ahead
Won’t step backward
Wedged

Insects crawl over me
Animals piss on my head

The human disturbance
The earthquake activity

Pitched
Thrown

At the whim of debris
Lost in creeping
Rhizome
Water

Life


Marni©

It Is
0831.2009

Under the dark trailing crickets sing
Without my understanding one word
Even with my ear to the ground
Bug melody gets lost among tire noise
In lanes where hours ago a living thing
Forwent innocence and survival
I like to say it not so
But it is
It is

I wrote you once to counsel on numbered days
“The dead like you to lay your head near theirs,
It is gloom settling the score with joy,” I said

The world is hard Magritte
You do not go far carrying a cherry under your skirt
Or braiding razors in your hair although
You may be delayed finding stains in your bed
Even worse tying your truth to something less in demand
Will put to death your purpose
I like to say it is not so
But it is
It is

How superb the wine is bitter
The roses push daisies
At 2:27am the crickets are still wordless vocalist in my head

Marni©

The Nature Of Human

I put this flower here this weed there. They are bound by slender whitened paper to your eye by my hand. How sweet to invent forests to lose me in, to forget us through, to fashion a woman from natural beauty. Outside ether folds while inside animus shapes. It is so still my bones have become statuettes in the night. It is so still I crack. - Marni

This morning is calm and it looks like it will be a beautiful day. Christopher and I woke early to sit on the porch and watch the sun rise over a cup of hot coffee.

I decided to write a few nights ago since not having done so for a while. When I wrote about death in the past it was always from a rather morbid point of view, as though 'I' wanted to die. But with the happiness I'm feeling with regard to loved ones and my life, I wanted to see the old character in a new light.

 

Death

0824.2009

 

On a hilltop without dawn

Death encounters us

he beckons breath to him

upon high ridge horizons

makes it easy for us to go

like god though not god

 

Death severs the vein

from the heart of being

to make empty bastions

leaves empty porticos

where irises could display

themselves in spring

 

As summer sleeps

Death stuffs the ground

with a natural Holocaust

no matter Jew or Arab

Death feeds a fat round earth

on mortal virtue and sin

 

Neither right nor wrong

undo the Death decree

neither cabinet nor ministry

disobey the quiet exodus

Death quenches lips

gasping for the notes

of one last aria unsung

 

Extended and unproud

hand offered to the lonely

solemn delay of mankind

human relief for years of unrest

surprising exit of adulations

do you beseech the solace

for your ancient impetus

 

No

 

Death is an architect impending

is master of truth designing

his life campaign to distract

our own willingness

from his lasting artistry

Marni©

Finally going back to it after weeks off. I was intimidated but feel okay once again. So, this is part of the layout. I say part because there will be many more items to be laid out. Birds, insects, leaves, flowers, and bones, - each object will be drawn out first and then placed in the image in varying positions on top detailed leaves. I think this work will take me about four months, if I am honest. In between I may do some small projects or I'll go insane.

Mother in 1966

I just love this image of her (in the front), it's my favorite although a tad insulting. I placed it under a cut for those who don't like profanity. This is her in 1966.

( Le Click )

This morning I woke up to sit at the art desk and get to work and look what was waiting for me. Christopher is a sneaky pete! He left me a gift of tea and a beautiful version my favorite book. It was a nice surprise and set the tone to be a good day.

Of all the artists who have been influential in my eyes, Sarkis Katchadourian's illustrations of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khuyyam have made the biggest impression. When I was a little girl I would stare at the lovers in the book in awe of his pastel colors and soft curves. The figures were almost genderless.

The images are hard to find, but I found them. These images are in the other version of my Rubaiyat, which is in California hiding closet, in another version of this book with a black cover. I managed to find those images that moved me as a little girl and still possess a sense of mystery and awe.

</div></div></div></div>

I had a visitor this evening, which brings me to a complaint: why do people get so damn excited to mow their stupid lawns. Why not let it grow natural? Christopher mowed this evening and missed this innocent baby by just a few inches.

( Three More Bunny Pictures )

This evening while working, it happened again; another night visitor, and we thought the chance of it happening again was zero.

This bat also flew up the stairs, but then it came back down for a short while before going back up, allowing pictures in different rooms.  It also spent most its time in the spare bedroom and seemed less afraid, nearly landing on me several times. We had to patiently wait for it to fly out the open window, which it eventually did. The bat spent a longer time in our company as well.

I just have one question, where in the world are they coming from? 

Here are this evenings pictures (yes I edited the pictures, Mr. Myopic Madcap deserved to be immortalized forever in photography.)