A Landscape Painter

The young Sephardic came to paint in the park,
he was long bearded, long hair through the sides of the bald head,
his smile of endless landscape paths, he was there with his brush
by the Miami river beside the long trails of wooden meadows.
On the other side of the park was an insane asylum were no action
was even seen but the lull of days and a questioning silence,
no one came, no one left, no one was out ever in their cruel lawn,
now it is a very tall four star luxury hotel, leaving the crazed on the streets.
Dr.Heinrich Weiss wanted to be like Cezanne, reading
all the impressionistic painters journals that he would quote.
His long brown beard would flow in the breeze in laughter
flowing down the pathways with the trailing wildflowers
yellow and purples, he liked the open meadows, overseeing the
old sailboats on the dilapidated pier that old fisherman called their wives,
the children played, the seagulls cry and the old pelicans sat till sunset
Here that young man came that looked like a grandfather,
with his wild very long black beard, his old blemished painter’s diaries.
He had painted scenes from Buenos Aires where here recently lived,
for a few dollars to passer-by’s as his wife cried for him to get a real job.
He would quote from Gauguin, to Freud, reading, was life,
would past the evenings on the old futon, as his wife cooked his black
beans his rice and yucca, the snapper fish, delicious bread she baked.
There at his house surprisingly were many self-portraits, seemly
having a lifetime of endless paintings to fill a whole room.
When he started never finish in nature done through a photo.
On day coming to my studio with my vast open windows a sunset blazed,
“why don’t you paint this beautiful sunset, go now, do it?”
I replied, “it probably wouldn’t be a gorgeous sunset tomorrow.”
“Sure you can do it, will rise again, you will do a masterpiece.”
The sunset came everything was in a blaze of light for the fruit
trees dim shades everything in a lights sonorous rays…

Young Dead Soldier

The area around the lake is a strange place, for there was living a young man that was homeless and had no family. How he got there was not in the news, but he must have got there probably from Cuba or another South American country? I noticed that there was a young man living in the bushes just behind the pines. I didn’t want to disturb. I wasn’t going there often like I did when I was a teen. In those times there was a flute player that came across from the street with two girls to play flute.
This time I passed through but he wasn’t there, but I noticed there was a red picnic cloth with elaborate fruits and cheeses. Apples, kiwis, grapes, cheddar, mozzarella ball, two breads and very surprisingly a bottle of wine, food was well sealed from insects, but who was this really for, a love affair, or the young man?
Then I heard the young man joined the army. I had heard about this because it was in the news, he had been killed in action. Could he have been better homeless under a tree? Everyone has a choice of where they are going, but to seek a safer economy he died instead of having his life stabilized.

John Cage Collecting Mushrooms

When I was a teen I was lucky to meet John Cage. He died in 1992 so one had to be quick about it. He was in Broward Community College. He preformed his work with the students there, which were regular instruments and found instruments(that one wouldn't consider an instrument). He rehearsed the work twice when he said the performance was fine and played the whole thing. He had a very Zen like attitude to his creations that all the performances were going to be different, but a specific attitude what instruments or situations were going to be used. It was a relief to me that a performance doesn't have to be identical. Most of his later works were done with the I Ching divination, that would show the outcome of the notes, the instruments he would use was asked of the I Ching. He didn't want a self expression, but the notes and instruments would follow a certain way. Then later there was a formal concert were he played his piano composition that were early and not chance works. Then he did a very long reading from one of his books which was a total chance operation from the I Ching. I had earlier taken pictures with him. I let him sign his book, "A Year from Monday." A few years later I went to a concert that they played Martinu orchestra music, Cage music for percussion, and a large work of Earl Brown a friend contemporary of Cage sat beside me in the audience. It was a very memorial concert for many orchestral instruments. A past time cage had was collecting mushrooms, hence the picture.

Characters of Fiction

When a person writes a novel of a certain era that person has to use the place and time. One can gather information what the main characters were like, whether they were wealthy or poor, whether they were crazy or sane, whether they were exploited or whether they had it very easy or too easy! The person gathers information especially of this period and it could be a very different period than our own, ancient Rome, Medieval Paris, or 19th century Indochina? The she could read all the history of the characters or if it is a famous one read the history that seems to be authentic. One can write part of the story to what these characters lived, what really happened one really can’t know exactly for sure. It is what others say is authentic hopefully in that period of time. Definitely, one has to add more than what one has read in the history of place and time, character(s), in most stories is written in biography of the author who wrote it, especially good if the character lives in the area or has lived there, he knowledge of the people, many times what they still eat, these things rarely change, the traditionally foods, the clothing, music, religions, military or agricultural, architectural knowledge-- whatever is talked about? The person, he or she can indulge greatly into her own biography or very little depending on the material or interest of where the story is going? One has the write of a female main character if one is male or male characters if one is female if one ones to write in the opposite sex? One can be an animal even a plant or even a forest, anything, but it has to be realistic. There are some writers that prefer that type of writing than writing stories that are really memoirs with their own expanded fantasy imagination. Yet, most classics are written in the first person memoir fantasy for one knows the most about the life one is living or lived.

Moments

These Passing Moments


Child of the moment gleaming from no where?....

From what wonder star galaxy bright swirling ....

the dim earth that sadly sells for a thin dime. ....

The coffin box there lies for all to see, but people....

just past it by hungry for strange wailing ghost with toys. ....

Where do you come from and where are you going?....

Did you know the grey showers outside are gleaming....

in sad rivers going no where but the boisterous sea.....

Child of the moment gleaming green from no where,....

the melody pours forth so refined disappearing to the space.....

A boy eleven with his instrument by an old church ....

playing much better than a professional on Easter Eve ....

as birds listened fascinated while others drifted to work.....

Later, Michio, a Japanese guy with sarong and tank top....

and a flowing beard playing his shakuhachi and drum....

~isn’t this what they loved, instead of so much television?....

The ocean was out there, as people suntanned,....

but the colorful playground was empty before us.....

There was a long conversation before us, but....

he had certainly a plane, then a train to catch….....

The long haired, bearded Japanese one was on a long trip....

to Macchu Picchu, then staying in ....Belize.... for the rest....

of the year in a rundown old cottage by the sea,....

eating fish and laying naked under naked stars....

with his childhood friends Miguel Suertes Blanco,....

and Bianca Rodriguez and their seven children....

in their tattered old clothes and rundown shanty....

by the blue curling river with abundant fish.....

Sitting under the shady green strumming the charango....

to long lost memories of olden songs his mother sang.....

There will be old Mariachi bands, Peruvian flutes,....

Faraway drumming as the purple rain falls.....

Laying there with the toucan and sliding snake....

on the old rustic hammock enjoying the breeze. ....

He will change his shade with the misty moon,....

and appear later as the frightful yellow leopard hidden....

deep in the cave shouting at the misty moon!....

Perhaps, he now never needs to return to ....Japan....? ....

.. ..

Where Ships Return

Where Ships Return ....

With these escaping fragments, place them in harbors....

where ships return with future possibilities.....

Light house beacons that docks castaways....

on sandy beaches where there is a fair sky mirror.....

The possibility of these rising cliffs ....

green lagoons of childhood lost sea horses,....

broken ships decks, pink corals, sandy crabs,....

loud distance conches, violet swirled shells. ....

In the dark brown bamboo hut where....

laying there in moments that are hours.....

A fresh sunlit room speaks for itself,....

a room of rainy languid showers....

as spirited ghost dance their forgotten history.....

opening and closing of doors, feeling space.....

To know the possibility of islands....

and far stretches of the tumultuous horizons. ....

Knowing the long corridors of voices and chords....

strung down empty candle lighted halls, ....

as trumpets blare out over the orchestra of viols.....

This is the bare heart fulfilling water wheel,....

in light filled breathings ~ writing on empty tables,....

sequence toward no failures, in dark apertures of rain.....

A folded chair beside umbrella, bag with fountains pens,....

folders of sheets and three classics, writing on the sandy....

waves, star of the noon breeze ~ perfumed horizon.....

Children’s laughter amidst the sandcastles, orange blaze....

of sun, indigo sleepy night fading sound traffic....

Water timbre spoken to the talisman of dreams,....

waiting in anxious surprises in cool room flowing daze. ....

Out Sourcing

Outsourcing.
2/25/11

The other day I was thinking of jobs and how they are displaced. Since I am into music I thought of that first. In the old days there was more musicians employed for there was no recording systems. The pit orchestras in theatre I was thinking of. It was in the 80’s when there was Muszak and that kind of music required musicians to take a popular song many times and play it easy listening. Not only was a musician needed to play it but another to arrange it. There was arranger of this music that would take the song of the day or older one and make their own. There were songs that were easy listening enough and needed little arrangement. It died out, with a few years, but at one time there were four stations with this music. At the end I remember there was very great Christmas arrangement. John Lennon use to listen to easy listening as he did his chores around the house and mention that the only Beatles songs they played were very popular ones, there were so many good ones ignored.
It wasn’t too much later that cds came into music and they were three times more expensive than records and sat in small bind besides mostly records. I thought it is ridiculous the price of the cds because most people that buy them are teenagers and they don’t have that kind of money. I was a teenager myself at the time. Some smart ass teenager at the time told me, “most people make twenty dollars an hour.” The computers became very sophisticated and the teenagers and others decided why they should pay anything at all? Now, musicians have to find another way to make money, has gotten harder, going on concert tours. It is only the extremely popular and very insipid that makes the riches.
One hears it all the time the out sourcing to foreign countries jobs that could be American. More technological systems that humans are not needed and I removed for machines that do their jobs. Like recently, the toll takers were removed for machines. They have to find another job in a country with little jobs. The televisions, computers, clothing are made overseas for they make more money in the labour more people out of work. In the 80’s there was still clothing many times made in the states, as the years gets on there is nothing. They think these unemployed people will find something out there. There is no concern for the people but only how much money can be made! They want to make the country one of nonproducers, only the wealthy manipulating the system to make the largest sum of cash.
Education surely is a source to a better life, but that doesn’t necessarily fix the problem that many times the job can’t be found, not only in the humanities which is harder hit, but in business, etc. The business goes bad, like all those that flounder under and the person is unemployed for years, if he or she has bad luck. What one thinks will be prosperous isn’t, and what one thinks wont is prosperous, many times this happens, be yourself!!!