calla lilies blooming moonbright
she buries a sachet at the crossroads
deal with the devil or gift to the gods
all that matters is her own ends.
This open-ended commission began with the words “dark, dank, feminine, and grounded.” The darkness of the night sky is contrasted by the brightness of the woman’s moonlit cloak. Deals must always have two sides, two competing interests. Fate is a dirty dealer, but some things are worth the gamble.
“No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's . . ."
"And?"
"No damn cat, and no damn cradle.”
―Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
This piece began as a tattoo design for a friend. The ouroboros, self-devouring corn-snake, twined between their fingers, a pair of hands play cat’s cradle.
“She felt, suddenly, the immensity of the moon.
It swam through the dark coldness of space
Enormous, looming, made of dust and stone.
Circling the Earth like a shark
Beneath a sea of light and ozone.”
A hawk steals a viper’s kill. A field mouse is rescued from death’s jaws by a worse fate. The viper has a very bad day ahead of it.
Life is full of small sufferings, the moon circles, unfazed.
mushroom shapes imprinted
on her memories of summer,
a rolodex of fungal form
behind her eyelids slumber.
tips tracing your palm
smell of balsam and sandalwood
stutter to a short line’s end
”oh, that’s not good.”
The intimacy of a palm-reading has always struck me, like the knowing caress of a lover, or the gentle touch of a doctor. To take one’s hand into your own is to know their pulse, their scars, their habits, and their lives.
“She is lost and gone forever,
Dreaful sorry, Clementine.”
Canary feathers are tickling these birdcage ribs. A prayer card for sweet Clementine, whose dreadful burial was attended only by birds. Women die in every children’s story. It’s to show that the story is beginning, but it always results in her ending.
glassy-eyed glare
human machine
void staring back
unimpressed
Much of my early work is an attempt to understand the mechanics of human motion using the indelible and often unforgiving contrast of pen. This piece is a meditation on the similarities between man and our machines, and a cheeky offering of steampunk solutions to a futurist’s problems.
A submission for a coloring book.
