Old Friends

Friends

My old friend
Talking of songs we sang
Of games we knew and played
Old friends
For years and years and, yes more years.

Talking of trips we took
Of the time the well went out, and no heat
The burnt lintel soup
Laughing to tears
Crying over the years.

Screaming Yellow Zonkers
In a Volkswagon micro bus
Singing off tune the words we didn't know
From Gallup to Fresno
Just old friends trying to stay awake.

Who could know so much
About each other and our pasts
Talking is so unnecessary
But we seldom stop
Chattering friend to friend of the old times.

Old friends
Sitting at the breakfast table telling tales
Of the years and the memories shared
The highways and byways traveled together
Just old friends.

(c) J. Binford-Bell

Note: the opening photo is of the two chairs I just finished redoing. I bought them for $5 almost a year ago and finally got around to painting and recovering them to match my art studio. A new look for two old friends.

Dealing with Chaos

Feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. This state of affairs struck me at 3:30 a.m. when I realized I hadn't a clue where my mortgage statement was for this month. It would have arrived shortly after I returned from my big fair of the fall with all the unpacking that entails.

Then the gallery I was in gave up its lease in one building and put art in storage until it reopens in December. That means I took some of my work home to have for a local fair on Thanksgiving weekend. The gallery moving also meant I was able to get a library table for my printers and scanner in the office to replace a door I was using balanced on two file cabinets. A neighbor gave me a reading chair for my living room and yesterday I installed the last baseboard heater in the studio.

All this meant moving stuff from point A to B and sometimes C. And they all happened in such a short period of time that I believe there is a D in there someplace but I cannot remember where that was - the twilight zone?

This leads me up to the reason for this blog entry: I have not finished three paintings. I stare at them and cringe. They are good beginnings and I can see where they are going but my soul is not quiet enough to paint. Some order needs to return to my physical space to allow order in my mind. So today I am getting out of my house to gain perspective as well as make a list of what needs to happen to allow my creative muse to return.

While out I will shop for a couple little things that will help me organize - or re-organize my spaces. Saturday will be devoted to that re-organization. And hopefully Sunday I can paint and draw and create again.

What upsets your creative balance?

Sitting Here Awaiting Day

Sitting here

Sitting here in the cone of light
The dark before the dawn
Erasing the world outside
Life a newly cleaned slate awaits
For us to write the day upon it.

The fog puppet sits staring at me
Sits upon the frog tray in the center of the light
I star back not knowing
What to write upon the clean surface before me
The white of the journal's page
The black of the new day beyond the window.

My mind is hallow
Like the frog puppet's head
And yet too much within it swirls
Like the cream in my coffee
The new day outside has reached a cusp
All is past and all is future.

Present is this cone of light
The frog puppet, my cup of coffee
A pen, a journal.
This blank page with thought unorganized
For the day which awaits
Just beyond the black slate of night.

(c) J. Binford-Bell 2008

All Souls Day

Celebrate

All souls day
The balance of the year spent
The day half dark
Half light

Samheim
The Wiccan says
Greeting of the pagan
New Year

Glorious day
Sitting upon my stoop
The day not hot
Not cold yet

Oh, if I could
Just cast a spell
To hold this delicate balance
Another week.

(c) J. Binford-Bell

I Lived Here Once

Lived Here Once

I lived here once
Ten, twenty, thirty
Was it, could it be
Almost forty years ago
My wild and crazy youth.

The best of years
Or the worst
Oh, so very hard to say
Can a block of time
Be categorized so simply.

Or was it not the place
Or even the companions
Some band and some good
But an age, the times, and yours
The seventies and your twenties.

Yes, I lived here once
In so many ways so familiar
And now at times so strange
I've looked at those vistas
Driven that road.

It was once so much narrower
But weren't we all
Our trim days of youth
Spent drinking tequilla
Smoking pot.

Where did those dangerous curves go
On both the road and our bodies
Our flaunting of speed limits
And societal norms
We have grown up and the neighborhood out.

Oh, Yes, I lived here once
Before Bella Vista was torn down
And when the Triangle Market was at the triangle
When Pete's was Pete's
And we all wished for a deli.

It isn't Salsalito just yet
But getting oh, so close
The rebels are hard to find
But no longer too far out to invite for tea
There are three delis now

Tequilla and brownies
Are now wine and cheese
Coffee and bagels with lowfat cream cheese
Once seven bars and one church
Now the reverse, is that good?

Thirty eight years ago I moved here
Thirty two I moved away
Taking memories
Some good, some bad
Which don't always fit with my returns.

Yes, I lived here once
And parts of me have moved on
But some of me lingers
Reluctant to leave
There were good times here.

My rebellious youth
Has also gone the way of the neighborhood
My bell bottom figure belled
Too many delis and cafe lattes
Too little speed.

I lived here once
The neighborhood is not the same
But then again neither am I
The 60's are not my 20's
The 70's are long gone.

(c) Jacqui Binford-Bell

The opening picture is called Rural Route and is one of my "hill and dale" paintings. They are of no place specific but just generally northern New Mexico rural areas.

Poetry Wednesday - Jane

Jane
What to say about Jane
An old friend
Yes.

History
Jane and I have history
A new friend said
Yes.

Yes
Jane and I have tales to tell
of each other and to each other
Tales going way back
Past.

A past
With secrets Jane and I share
Which we can reveal
Or not.

Not
Was the answer before
What difference does that make
Now?

Jane
Of a thousand things said
And only a few
Withheld.

Secrets
Make us sick
Or keep a friendship
Whole?

Or not
Is our present
Based on that secret
Less?

Then
It seemed so not to matter
A favor to not share
Shame.

Now
Jane curls in upon herself
Like a tree around an ax strike
Scared.

Then
Was it mine to keep inside
Or hers she kept from me
Ours?

It
Sits between us now
Is it too late to excise
This wound?

If
I were to speak of it now
Could she even admit
It?

And
Would the wound thus opened
Be larger
Worse?

Festering
An opening coming
Way too late for us
For Jane.

(c) J. Binford-Bell

Surrealism

Latest painting. Number 17 of those I have done since my last big art fair. This one is only 11 x 14 and like many of those of that size probably a study for a bigger one at a later date. I like the surrealistic view of the world and especially the canyon lands of where I live.