New Work

Landing Party 1968
Monotype

Water Reclamation
Monotype

Bookshelf
Etching

Bedroom
Monotype



Just some prints I have been making lately.

LA Public Library

Last Friday I spent the entire day immersed in the poetry stacks of the LA Public Library.
They have a great collection of rare books, chapbooks, and limited edition pressings signed by the writer. They really should have a department specifically devoted to the study and spread of poetry. Its a shame since the collection is so nice but never showcased...

I checked out a collection of Robert Creeleys that I have been wanting a long time. I've decided I must eventually own a copy of each of his books. I wanted to share some poems from him that I copied into my journal:

For Love

by Robert Creeley

for Bobbie

Yesterday I wanted to

speak of it, that sense above

the others to me

important because all

that I know derives

from what it teaches me.

Today, what is it that

is finally so helpless,

different, despairs of its own

statement, wants to

turn away, endlessly

to turn away.

If the moon did not ...

no, if you did not

I wouldn’t either, but

what would I not

do, what prevention, what

thing so quickly stopped.

That is love yesterday

or tomorrow, not

now. Can I eat

what you give me. I

have not earned it. Must

I think of everything

as earned. Now love also

becomes a reward so

remote from me I have

only made it with my mind.

Here is tedium,

despair, a painful

sense of isolation and

whimsical if pompous

self-regard. But that image

is only of the mind’s

vague structure, vague to me

because it is my own.

Love, what do I think

to say. I cannot say it.

What have you become to ask,

what have I made you into,

companion, good company,

crossed legs with skirt, or

soft body under

the bones of the bed.

Nothing says anything

but that which it wishes

would come true, fears

what else might happen in

some other place, some

other time not this one.

A voice in my place, an

echo of that only in yours.

Let me stumble into

not the confession but

the obsession I begin with

now. For you

also (also)

some time beyond place, or

place beyond time, no

mind left to

say anything at all,

that face gone, now.

Into the company of love

it all returns.

Collection

Is life only this arithmetic of experience?

Asleep at the same time.

1

Swam in a lake brown 
with Water 
to a house in Indiana.

To a tree. 
To a lamp-post cinder-tied to the ground thrown against it.

2

I am standing on the parched porch leaves watching—
Guy taking a leak in the sun burnt stair well.

Clothes hanging dry on the branch line.

What is there more than soft bed, soft sheets. 

Where to it?
Where to it and why, poem— 

Up the page into pure white?

My mind falls open on it. 

Green Christmas.

This was, my green Christmas. Hanukkah too. There are eight days in Hanukkah but actually nine candles on the Menorah. One is the starter candle. Ian's dad read jumbled hebrew as the youngest person lights the first candle and then the next youngest and so on and so forth. And you don't blow them out, you let them burn all the way down. For dinner we had potato pancakes. It was good. Very warm.. It was wonderful. I love Ian's family. 

On Christmas we went to Ian's grandma's house. Mansion rather. The table was so long. The best part was Ian, his dad, brother, cousins, and the caretakers husband, all jamming out some serious tunes... I have never experienced a Christmas where everyone got together and played music.

We are living with Ian's Aunt Marie and his Uncle Pat in their house on an acre of land in the San Gabriel Valley. The Mountain is hanging above us. Ian and I take drives up in the Mountains. I think I am obsessed with them now. We have a little pale blue room with a big old bed. Everything is tucked nicely away and always tidy. Ian is playing electric guitar in the other room and its sounds beautiful. 

The acre of land that surround this old house (1931) is mostly occupied by fruit trees, (avocado, lemon, grapefruit- both kinds - oranges and tangerines) Bird houses (huge ones, for doves, rock doves, little blue cockateels, finches ( i think )), cactus, birds of paradise flowers and roses. Feral chickens nest in the huge oak tree, the goats eat all our scraps in the back yard. I haven't seen the pig in ages, but the dogs are all accounted for. The only two in the house are the special dogs, Meemer, who was dropped on her head as a pup, and Boxer, he's deaf. Meemer is a Pomeranian and Boxer is a white boxer.

There are lots of other animals all around, some I haven't seen yet. Everything is a discovery here. A few weeks back I saw a stunted forest Marie is growing. Pruning the trees so they stay tiny. Its such a peaceful place. I feel I am finding myself and what I want to do again. Feeling at rest.