Having Reckoned with the Second Month

Having reckoned with the second month,

spelunking through the caves of February winter,

Twenty-Sixteen soon will be the sprinter March requires

to run the course toward Spring to bring the opening

to everything beyond – particularly through

to Summer of which all years seem to be most fond.

Desires will be met and left in Fall – then swallowed

by a cold return to the illusion we have had it all –

heralding the heaven of the unforeseen –

dismembering December into Twenty-Seventeen.








.

Magenta, Gold & Blue

You like magenta, gold & blue

of which the most descriptive hue

for you

is blue.

.

Ghost of Blue Youth

Sitting there naked,

the ghost of blue youth

sustains what Keats knows:

beauty is truth.

.

Bird Flower

Evolution turned up

to the sixty-seventh power

might, if we are fortunate,
assemble a Bird Flower.

.

Algebra Teacher, Retired

She taught algebra to everyone who ever lived –

at least it seems that way to her, now that she’s done with it –

and in a hapless manner multiplies by x the ones she did

teach x y equals y x to. Her head is large with recollection –

full of her mathematics-ridden aptitudes which were

her ticket to a life. She never married, though had she

been born a man she would have passionately loved a wife.









.

A Hush

You tell your friend what happened

and it snaps you back

to all the shock and actuality –

the block of factuality

which will not let you rest. Best

to let it drop – but how to stop

its rabid push?

He whispers reassurance –

precipitates a hush.









.

Not-So-Secret

To have it widely known

that you’re the most exquisite

of your species can become a bore

(all that Jungle Red, Chanel, Dior!) –

and yet it’s not-so-secret
that you couldn’t love it more.

.

Ergo

Dream figures hold assumptions, too –

each thinks that it can see right through the other:

head off at the pass whatever reverie is on its way

so it can substitute its own revered array of story –

take the glory and the reins and lead you solely

to the strains of its suspense and recompense.

Ergo, dreams don’t make much sense.









.

Bemused

Defused, bemused, at sea.
There are worse ways you could be.

.

Her Centrality

Her centrality

had lost control.

Her golden hair

comprised her soul

and she was

losing it.

Had she been

abusing it?









.

Half

Half man

and half ceramic bibelot,

there aren’t many places

he can go.












.

Enmity is Easier than Love

Enmity is easier than love –

until you lose the taste for it –

and find it easy to replace

with curiosity and humor

and bewilderment and awe,

which prod a law of wonder:

a sort of thunder in the heart

some label gratitude –

a mystic longitude and latitude

which rise like Delphic vapors

from below and float about,

around and down like sunlight

from above. Then you find

that nothing’s easier than love.






.

Voluptuous Obfuscation, An Exercise

Information emanates more strangely

than we think, or know. Much of thinking is,

in fact, a way to thicken and to sink the flow,

break down the fleeter sweeter bridges

over which we might more efficaciously

discover Soul – to quicken and to aid our sight –

to radiate sufficiently capaciously through means

which don’t depend on grammar’s hammer or on

the illusion of a logical phylogeny of thought

for truly generative thinking’s light and flight.

Electing to release instead of fleecing facts

in some erroneous attempt to undertake

the fraught inspection of their use, can quite

magnificently squeeze the fruit of life for juice,

tease out the only antidote to psychic strife.

Wielding syllables? – a Lilliputian enterprise:

chasing silly swarms of dull varieties of gnat.

We can do more with consciousness than that.

.

In Her Bathing Suit

She’s listening

for something

down the hall.

Anything at all.

.

Inimitable Grandeur

She chose her friends in terms

of their inimitable grandeur –

and had her picture taken with them

so to offer up the sort of photograph

that you could hand your

mother when she asked with whom

you had affectionate relation.

She’d show her mama one of these,

no hesitation.









.

The Thing That Makes You Turn Around

The thing that makes you turn around

is sometimes not the thing you want to see.

I learned this when the thing that made you turn

around was me.

.

Ends and Means

Fate takes you in hand and you think it’s the end.

And you struggle against it – until you discover it isn’t the end

nor the means to an end since there isn’t an end.











.

The Désespoir of Birds

There aren’t any words

for the désespoir of birds.

Avian depression

can be sunk by an oppression

unimaginable to our species.

Conjure up explanatory theses

as you will.

But birdy blues can kill.









.

What I’d Call a ‘Myself’

First Person slips off the shelf.

Keeps missing whatever I’d call a ‘myself.’

Second might do, 
through its sneaky ambiguous ‘you.’

‘One’ has a sort of a Jamesian tone,
but it sits rather too much aloofly alone.

Personal pronouns keep missing the bus:
they only report what purports to be ‘us.’

So I tried to look ‘I’ in the eye.
I drew what I saw in the mirror. Oh my.

Something looks back from the page.
Quiet, polite – but in covert outrage.








.

Terror’s Spectrum

Terror runs the spectrum

from the terrified to terrifying –

fearfully expected treasures

of a violent oblivion

to promises of tearful, numb

and spectral equilibrium.








.

Radioactive Spirituality

Crackling with radioactive spirituality,

its lyrically empirical reality catches

you unaware and makes you

stare and swear you’ve seen

and been the thing before and that

you’ll want to see and be it evermore.










.

We Think You Did It

We think you hid it.

We think you did it.

You broke the laws.
You are the cause.

.

Crucially Dual

We manage to manage to manage it.

Crucially dual, replete with renewal.

.

Don’t Bother Him

Don’t bother him. He’s walking fast.

He knows the opportunity won’t last.

.

Juggling Suns

Juggling suns
is fun.













.

Propagation

Beings propagate each other

all the day and night.

They keep thinking: “Maybe

this time we will get it right.”













.

Donna & Guy's Magical Mystery Tour

 

Donna & Guy's
Magical Mystery Tour

Donna Boguslav & Guy Kettelhack

Atlantic Gallery 

Suite 540, 547 West 27th Street or 548 West 28th Street, New York NY 10001, 212-219-3183

February 23 - March 19, 2016

Reception: Thursday, February 25 - 5 - 8 p.m.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

As the last changeling born to an Irish gypsy and a winding

Alaskan river, I packed my caravan early with little knives,

toe shoes, sable brushes, loon feathers, and a stethoscope.

I posed nude for magicians waving fine charcoal wands;

they taught me to paint songs on woven cloth. I followed

turtles building great castles; they taught me to scratch

dreams on dead trees. I continue my travels, midwife little

worlds, exist on laughter and mystery. I thank you and

every artist I have ever known.

---Donna Boguslav

            Sea Creature, Donna Boguslav

            http://atlanticgallery.org/artists/donna-boguslav/

================================================================

In the twenty-five years Donna and I have known each other - and mingled our lives and spirits - we've explored a wide shared territory of life, and the great good news we can report from that exploration is that everything is goosed by the beats of cosmic laughter. To have the chance to mix our versions of that discovery in this show offers me the greatest happiness I can imagine. And I suspect seeing our work together may prove entertaining for anyone game enough to walk up to it. I'm the child of two artists, although mostly have made my way through life as a writer; however, quite without warning, I started doing a drawing a day on April Fool's Day 2009 - creatures emerging from which have accompanied poems I'd already been writing. Since then they've found their ways into art shows and poetry journals but mostly into Donna's hands, where I most want them to go. But now, in this magical mystery tour, Donna and I get to show our strangenesses to you, too! Come join us!

Guy Kettelhack

We Sense It Had To Do With Blue, Guy Kettelhack

http://www.artslant.com/global/artists/show/272460-guy-kettelhack