Writings  

The perfect weather is about 47 degrees

and we have good heavy jackets on. It’s

nighttime, just after dinner, and all the lights

are glowing and magnificent. The car lights

and the warm tungstens bathing the streets

from the interiors and the reflectors on

the bicycles are there. And the lamplight

and the smell of hot food from the good  

restaurants and there’s the smell of fresh

chocolate and the wafting of street food

on the corners. And it’s cold out, but

we’re hugged up and she’s holding on tight

and we just might stop for coffee then go to

St. Mark’s bookstore for some affordable

haughty entertainment and deep conversation.

I’ll look through the philosophy section and

read her a poem before we leave, maybe

something wise from Emerson, or a

passage from Plato on love. She’ll look through

the design books and I’ll kiss her for it. And we

stroll and we stroll just getting lost in that

steamy city air. And the sirens are dampened

in the distance and the train cars roar but it’s

a roar of passion and your spit mixes with her

spit and your blood mixes with her blood and

it’s enough to set the whole damn majestic

city on fire. And you love it, but you love

her most. And you miss it, but not too much.

Because it’s still so very alive in your soul.

With soul, and one hand out holding

a tin cup sing it to yourself…

Ch-change! Ch-change! Ch-change!

Ch-change! Ch-change! Ch-change!

Yeah, he had soul alright. Every

morning and every evening he had

soul. And I don’t know if he’s still

kickin’, this man, but he had soul.

And this destitute ol’ boy earned every

single penny, nickel, dime, and quarter

he had comin’, unlike the bums.

And that’s the distinction between

a bum and a destitute; the destitutes

have soul. The bums are all washed up.

Their souls have run south, for good.

Just like that ol’ Missisippi runs downhill

and empties into the gulf, well, their tears

done dried up. Yeah, ain’t no ocean

at the end of their tears, just rotten flesh

and dry ol’ cheek bones. Empty ebony

sockets of evil – that’s a bum for ya.

Turn their back on ya the second ya hand

‘em a sandwich, or a fifty. Doesn’t matter

though, ol’ Easy Money had soul!

And he couldn’t dance, or maybe he could,

and he couldn’t rhyme, or maybe he could,

and he couldn’t read… or, maybe he could,

but boy could he sing two lines better

than Muddy Waters on a good night.

Ch-change! Ch-change! Ch-change!

Ch-change! Ch-change! Ch-change!

Yep, that’s how he sang it alright, just like

that. And he was old and tired so he’d sit

on the stoop of that city, just owning the

wind, and the jackhammers, and the rich,

and the poor. And I talked to him once.

Couldn’t understand a damn thing he was

sayin’ except two lines, but sure, we talked.

And I was new to that city, but he took me in.

And I took him in. And you know how

they never tell ya how hard things are gonna

be, well, after one look at him you just knew

it was gonna be a long hard road ahead.

And that goes for me, for you, for everyone,

that is, if ya want soul.

So – Easy Money. This one’s for you.

Except this time I’m gonna sing it to ya.

And if you’re alive, and I know you are.

Whether up there or down here – you listen

real close now, because it ain’t mimicry

no more. The pockets are dry and there ain’t

no one ‘round here but the sky. So I’m hopin’

when you hear this you’ll cry a little, like none

of those bums ever could.

Now fill my cup baby…

Ch-change! Ch-change! Ch-change!

Ch-change! Ch-change! Ch-change!

I remember Grampa was a quiet man.

Loved to sit and sip a highball with my dad.

I loved to sit on his lap when I was glad.

He wore a hat brimmed all the way around –

O how he loved to hear the sound of my laugh

when I was just a little chap wearing his hat!

My dad said he’d hit him with his shoes.

It’s difficult for me to believe that he ever got the blues,

or, that a man like him could ever lose.

He lived a long life, my grampa!

But, in the end he went blind –

I wonder what was in his mind?

Maybe a swan swimming or a love song,

or, did he long to be with grama again grinning?

Who’s to say really, but, I bet he’s with her now being silly!

Sitting atop some mischievous cloud

still throwing shoes at my proud dad!

Of course, my dad is still living,

but, that doesn’t mean he still doesn’t feel that blunt wallop!

Grampa had a little gallop so

when it came to clambering around the house

he was innocent seeming to me as a mouse,

but again, he loved his highballs –

then he’d get to high steppin’,

and I bet that’s when he’d use that shoe as a weapon!

Not even there there is just cause

For, in my heart is a worm eating at me

The sweat wiped from just above my brow is amazing

I go forward like this blindly with motion on my side

And all my days I go on like this knowing not what I do

But what I say, for, I am gay

Sometimes a sentence can run on and on and it’s okay as long as you have something good to say like this one time I wrote a poem about a girl and it was one of my best poems yet and it was called The Moon and I, then I sent it to her and she enjoyed it, I think, because she responded positively in a written message but I really am not totally sure because I’ve seen her since and she behaved in an awkward way like she didn’t really know how to act or what to say but she’s beautiful and so am I so I didn’t know what to say either and she has a boyfriend anyway who I hope treats her well at least better than I have when I’m drunk in the place and not saving face and looking at other gal’s asses and, you know, other gal’s faces, and you know, making conversation with the other girls who don’t really stack up but you have to live when you’re alone and be social even though it’s difficult especially when I read her poem The Moon and I at a poetry reading held in a very small town west of here and it was received well like people were wooing and wowing and even flirting with their shouts and whistles, I think there were whistles, but anyhow, it made me feel good and bad at the same time because though I wrote something caring and sexy she wasn’t there to hear it and I laid it all on the line that night, was shaking like a wounded bird approached by a human but my voice never cracked so I guess there’s that and how I wish she were here now as I lay down these words in her absence and I bet she won’t read this even though I hope she does because it’s obvious the hold she has on me and she should know that one thing, that I am possessed by her gorgeous straight as an arrow just past the shoulders beautiful brown hair and her baby face and her boisterous bosom and even more boisterous smile and perfect teeth.

As the sun beats down
On this two-bit town
Let’s have one for the
Crazies who seek shade

As the laborers do their part
Sweating grinding out hours
Of stone and brick we make art
Of some things lesser and some
Things more bold

With them in the middle setting
Concrete molds 
Or wrenching on cars to be sold 
We do little until inspiration
Tells us to either create or shoot someone

Some crazies don’t seek shade,
Can’t seek shade, 
Until their wreckage is made,
Until the cork pops 
On a thousand boiling soda-pops 
Left in the sun all day without firm regard

Until the cops 
Come lay them to rest 
Long over-due after they failed the test 
Of sun and shade
And their final balancing act, 
Unfortunately, 
Is the grave

No, 
I seek shade like you do, 
Before the tipping point, 
Before the answer of millions of spectators 
Judges 
Pseudo psychiatrists 
Stay at home moms and 
Machismo fathers put me to rest

I, 
At my best, 
After running for days 
In the heat blistered seek shade 
And then behave 
And that’s my kind of crazy, 
The not so crazy, 
I guess

But, 
Even still, 
Do I pass the test? 
Truth be told I hate tests.
Yet, to be perfectly fair, 
Every day there are multiple choices
And the tragedies and rejoices 
Are so many that we, 
Is it fair to say we, 
That I can barely negotiate a C

So mothers 
Fathers 
Teachers 
Go easy on your children 
Your students 
Because a C is still passing, 
And a sure sign of prudence
In my book

God knows I graduated with honors only once 
And look, 
I’m no dunce, 
Just a little crazy, you know, just a little

Answers are not to be expected with art making. It is an open-ended pursuit. There is no reason we make art other than to fulfill a need. This need is expressed by the art we make, so we go on making it to understand more fully our need. It is of utmost importance to realize that the work alone is how we begin to understand our need. This is why the work comes first and the writing and talk second. All three help in awareness, but only making and viewing the work is truly fulfilling. It is of little use to question or doubt our impulses while making and our responses while viewing the work. These moments keep us in line with our needs. After a while experimentation is no longer necessary because we are guided entirely by the awareness of our impulses and responses. Experimentation gives way to expression. It is not experimentation when we are following inner directives and are conscious of these. At this point there will be little desire for stories about what we have done or plan to do. More attention will be given to the making and to silent response. The work alone holds the meaning. The painter who paints beyond their immediate need is painting out of materialistic desire. This art is the craft of decoration, ornament, and luxury. It is about skill and surface beauty. Not genuine concerns for the artist. Desire is false in the face of the viewer and is detected likewise. Its appeal, though seductive, is of mere sensation and appearance. Overtime, the artist gains awareness enough of their needs to discontinue the creation of such works. As awareness develops we become naturally dissatisfied with skill-ridden work, or decadence. It becomes clear to the artist the difference between refinement and skill. Those who draw the distinction detect their needs, those who cannot will in time, and those who are not concerned with need are not involved with art making, but with the production of empty commodity. There is plenty commodity of all kinds posing as artwork. When responding to this work we do not respond according to our needs, but according to our desires, a strictly pleasure based response. This work is quickly exhausted. It is preoccupied with the illusion of reality, the pleasure principle of luxury. Real artworks are capable of all sorts of responses, including that of pleasure. The difference in core response between artwork and the viewing of luxurious objects is of satisfaction. Our response to artwork is of a deeper kind. It strikes chords within us that we remember, which enlighten us to our sensibility, to our individual needs. Experience such as this is not interchangeable. Objects of desire excite us temporarily, but are immemorable and replaceable, therefore unfulfilling.

Having known work, I sit.

I look to the drippings of countless

days upon the painter’s mat.

Three newly dried puddles of blue-violet.

Time endures a new generation.

I used to work 11 hour days in a frame shop in Brooklyn to no end locking up every night after the art machine of commerce was empty of evil and all the brown packages were wrapped and labeled for shipment the following day. Then I would work another day and night and lock up after all the brown packages were wrapped and labeled for shipment the following day. Then I would work another day and night and lock up after all the brown packages were wrapped and labeled for shipment the following day and again and again. And then it was straight home to an apartment with 5' doors on the rooms and I would cook dinner and sleep until I could conjure enough energy to enter my studio at the back of the apartment and proceed to be creative the best I could. And I would use a hair dryer to dry the paint and a compressor to drive the nails and the only thing that was really driven at all was me by that city and occasionally I would see my gal but my head was so full of gears it ended after a year and it was goodbye to that city. Goodbye to her. And goodbye to the work that was bled from me like oil from derricks and in turn I made the blackest black and the apartment then collapsed into the depression of madness of days and nights haunted by the failed construct of capitalism on young souls who once had passion and grit and big eyes for fame and love and empathy for humanity and they crushed it like limestone beneath a grater then called upon new recruits for to suck their innocence too. Fuck the world.

It’s good to get out, see the world,

even if it’s just a trip to the smoke shop,

or the gas station. Maybe you’ll have

some contact. Something to remind

you that the world exists out there.

Someone might say something like,

“How are you”, or, “What’s up man”,

or if you’re lucky on a sunny day

a woman might just complement you

on how you look, or on what you do.

Today’s a little bit like that. Actually,

it’s just like that. Sometimes I feel like

I live here, in these lines, in these letters.

And the world is shit on those days

because you don’t want to live in here

bumming around the same old tropes

and words, banging your head up against

boredom and the monotony of art. No,

you want to live out there where the sun

shines like a beautiful diamond, or where

it’s golden like the hair of some casual

blonde out for a stroll laughing and toying

with her friends. Yes, you want to

live life like no tomorrow, to its fullest,

without the debauchery of booze and cigs.

A clean, clean, clean life sober as a man

with a mission to live life on the wings of

trumpeting geese or bald eagles that could,

with their clawed grip, pluck words, fresh

words, like animals from atop the soil

and do some good. This studio, this place,

it gets old after a while and then you know

it’s bad, really bad, when you start writing

about yourself in a way that the ego won’t

even fit onto the page. You sit down to

write after returning from the store, or the

gas station, or the smoke shop, and you fling

your coat down in anger and it’s back to

work. But then, something new comes.

And it’s like that sunset right outside

your door, fresh with life, not shielded

by the scum of cigarette tar on the

windshield but like a one on one

encounter with God or a Lion, and then

you know it, the fire, it still burns.

Timothy

I know of a young man, younger than I, that is gifted as the sky.

And I never thought of the sky as gifted until now.

But it contains the birds, the insects, the rainbows, and the sun,

And these are just the obvious things that come to mind when having fun. 

And he’s black and he’s young, and I can’t avoid these aspects

When writing of him because I must be honest with you here.

This is the space for some honesty, yes,

And on this day, I will tell you, that he has inspired me to write.

And on this day, I will record, that he considers himself, at times, a mere conduit.

And on this day, I shall confirm, that he is one.

But, on this day, I shall also say that I have evidence of his further gift,

For, there have been times, like this one, that a massive lift 

Has greeted my gravitous bones.

And I credit his writing and him as a man of words for the lift,

For, he has born my mind into something of the birds and insects that do fly.

Therefore, that’s the reason I will give you why Tim is gifted as the sky. 

And it shan’t be odd that I mention his flesh,

For, it’s further proof that the blessed know of not one single color,

But that they know of many, and that they wear the universal color of the sky.

Yes, we do – He and I   

The genius is a medium through which others communicate thought and can be seen as the scribe of a culture; a painter, a person, an individual by which ideas pass through. The source is at times unknown to him and her, nevertheless, he communicates by will, inspiration, and self; and by self only insofar as the expression serves his will and permissions. A profound echo of voices is engaged within him of which he is sometimes aware, and then, a sudden occurrence, outburst, or accumulation of subtler inspired moments is released into the world by way of birth, creativity, empathy, love, and compassion. Ok, now I will elaborate…  

The will comes into play before and after the perception of the object; the object in this sense, being, whatsoever is employed by genius. And by employed, I mean, willed into being. As Arthur Schopenhauer wrote long ago, “For genius to appear in an individual, it is as if a measure of the power of knowledge must have fallen to his lot far exceeding that required for the service of an individual will; and this superfluity of knowledge having become free, now becomes the subject purified of will, the clear mirror of the inner nature of the world.” But, the scribe as I like to call him and her, the genius, is not emancipated of will entirely – only for the duration of the pure perception of the object. It is by his decision and by his discretion as to utter the words, write the letter, create the work of art, do the science – to execute his or her true interaction with the world. And that decision, always, is through will. Yet, the abundance of knowledge or creative guidance provided him by others, I can only describe as, being like a gift vested him by sources sometimes unknown as Schopenhauer wrote, by “the gift of genius”.

Furthermore, Schopenhauer went on to write, “[…] In other words genius is the ability to leave entirely out of sight our own interest, our willing, and our aims and consequently to discard our own personality for a time, in order to remain pure knowing subject, the clear eye of the world; and this not merely for moments but with the necessary continuity and conscious thought to enable us to repeat by deliberate art what has been apprehended, and “what in wavering apparition gleams fix in its place with thoughts that stand forever!” […]” And by, “to leave entirely out of sight our own interest, our willing, and our aims and consequently to discard our own personality for a time” this is where I again come into play. For, it is by an orchestration of internal voices that I hear and perceive. But, the orchestration is there to help, positively, toward our aim and this duration of perception is bookended by a demonstration of will. Therefore, yes, I agree with Schopenhauer that it is not our self, or our “personality”, as he puts it that is the guide; it is those voices of others who guide for the duration of our perception sanctioned on either end, by will.   

Painting is what I live for.

And to write about painting is a joy, an absolute joy.

You do this, and everyone questions why.

Because, no man ever existed that knew why.

Some live to write about a woman.

Some live to write about the world.

I live to write about painting and to do my best at everything else.

I love it, life.

We have two cats, Change and Two.
Change loves the outdoors and Two loves the inside. Change has been declawed and Two hasn't. Backwards, I know, but it just worked out that way. Change, my boy, is beautiful like a tiger is, and has held onto his instincts necessary to roam the hood. He still drinks the rain, bathes in the noonday sun, and prowls at night. Two, on the other hand has no taste for the hard fast life anymore; the on your toes at every second nightfall way. He's as if beaten down by the world. He clings to the interior routine and comfort of domestication, and has earned his stripes. Though he's possibly younger, he grew up rough and out of our hands. And now he lives like a king, a king who has seen war. Who sleeps with one eye open, who tells tales of the hard fast life, who is poor in manners, but who is forgiven.

This piece marks a breakthrough

A calm amidst the storm

A beautiful sunshine through the darkened leaves and shade

And it is Nature at its fullest – bright, echoed, smoldering

One grey stripe to divide the pain and happiness

One grey stripe to provide you with direction and deliberate decision making

One grey to symbolize unity

The unity of all and the absence of all, white and black

This is my painting

My family

Each member represented by a square

And it is perfect

And the purple floats above the grey

It is their royalty, Chris and Justin’s

And Chris is one lavender heart and Justin, the boldest red beside her

And Mom is one bright orange square

And Dad, blue

And me, the center

And Chad, orange with a little black mixed in

And Tiff, turquoise with horizontally applied brushwork

And Kevin, just beside her, on the other side of the grey – blue-green

And Grandma, a vertical turquoise square, slightly lighter in coloration than Tiffany’s

And Grey, well, he is in the stripe

And me, a fleshy colored square to the right of the stripe below Kevin

And there was only one correction made in the yellow to hide a number I didn’t want to see

And I signed it on the front with a paint marker, acrylic

For me

I love the drip, the one lone drip and specs of paint

Otherwise, it’s yours to have and to hold and to restore with age

Love,

Damon

Guide the mark until it guides you – Let it live! Let it breathe!

Heaviness and lightness in one piece,

The rectangles pulsate

You go in – into the piece

Then, once you identify with the plain it pushes and pulls visually taking you in, out, and around the plain.

It’s a slow progression of ins and outs from colored rectangle to rectangle

The light dazzles

The shadows rest inward.

The cool shadows offer respite from the higher intensity shapes

Interlocking – connectivity

Doorways to a fantastic freedom of space

A mental activity warmed and cooled by the spirit – by the heart.