Pottery Graveyard (empathy poetry for potters)



Movements that

should have stilled,

circles of warp,

lines of lean,

unfunctioning functionals,

back to dirt.

SHARDS

Beside a kiln loading area in Japan

My Art Lover

Her Art greeted me.  It seems so long ago, but I recall her sculpted metal lips...her cockiness and coquettishness as she leaned her presence in towards me to ask, "Can I catch a ride?"

She is Vision, itself.  Thorns of acrylic adorn her India ink lines of a body.  She pleats and curves, elongates and undulates.  Her body is a compilation masterpiece of blended cross-hatching and brushstrokes. She folds and unfurls.  I even recognize all of the subtle paintbrush switching to achieve these glorious marks, these incredible palette mixtures of paint.  All from other artists, plural.  With streaks of Pthalo Green jealousy, I consider just wrapping her into my mind and stowing her there.  An artist's biggest fear is losing his Vision.

Sensing my intrigue, my latching interest, she tells me stories about her archival Art.  She mocks all of her artist transporters with tests: 

"Are you eager enough?" 
"Can you carry me...day in, day out, no matter what?" 
"What will you sacrifice for me?"
"Can you live with the consequences?" 

She brags that she moves through people quickly trying to find the ones who can support her.  As lithe as she is, she weighs heavily on our human bodies - on our minds - on relationships.  With her goals of progression, she demands to move forward, at all times, and to be regarded as a priority:  to be the number one, number two, and number three. 

"Yes, I can do it."  I say, as emphatic as I can, even though I have a fear of failure and a fear of success.  Either way, I am going to lose, so I agree to her terms and bend down to pick her up for the ride.  With a surprised expression and a shrug, she wraps her body onto my back. 

"I can do this.  I can handle her,"  I think to myself as I lift her and move forward.  I wonder if she reads my mind because I instantly feel this surging connection as, with emphasis, she presses her sex in close, grinding into my back.  I stand up a little straighter to give her resistance and like a horse responding to a clicking call,

we begin. 

Along the way, she tells stories of others' plights - one after another.  She is a blind spot in my vision:  always there, always seeing, always directing, but just out of reach.  She whispers mantras of creating and lust while we move together.  She conjures ideas, designs and new obsession.  She is Mixed Media. 

Even though she warns about what will happen when I seduce her, I touch her anyway.  She is a want for me...and a consumption of need. 

"Ahhh!"

Her body burns like scorched Raku.  My skin blanches white, then sears copper. 

Later, I share the scars with all at the opening...like a possession.  I am proud of her marks...the marks of an Artist. 

But, secretly, in the chromatic black of night, I run my finger over the scars, wondering if it is a real connection since the flashing is only on me.  I ask her about it, doubt filling my canvases: 

"Are you mine, too?" 

She laughs a knowing laugh. 

"I am yours." and after a pause, "But only in your totality, your complete immersion." 
Her answer does not soothe - it just tells me that I know the answer already.  Her future with me exists in my complete artistic transformation. This veiled response is a warning:  Do not falter.

I remember stumbling once, in pure exhaustion.  I tried to reach around and release her grip to catch my breath from her crazed momentum.

"No-" Her linear legs squeeze me harder.  Then, a little bit softer, she says, "You're almost there." 

"Where?" I ask, speaking for all before me, all after me, all that I have to give. 

"There...the place you've always wanted.  The place you do not know how to find without me.  You know..."  and she presses herself harder against me.  Unbleached Titanium runs down my back.  "There." 

Yes, my desire.  The - what I've always wanted to do, where I've always wanted to go - the unbridled life of an Artist.  I think about what I have to do to keep her satisfied.  What I have to do to satisfy me, an eternally dissatisfied artist.  We continue heading to There. 

After a few years, I realize I cannot define Originality anymore   What would I be without her silhouette cloaking me?  What would I be without her voice, the incessant whispers?   She signs all of my artwork.  She marks me.  Who am I to question authenticity?  Surely she can exist in my art, too?  I reassure myself with more of her inspirational murmurings.  She is my completion.  Always moving forward, I commit complete Cobalt Blue devotion to her, this fleeting moment of Art. 

One late afternoon during our travels into a cataclysmic mixed media piece, I sense her slipping.  Her legs are not wrapped as closely.  I feel the firmness of her breasts sliding lower and lower until her nipples only flutter lightly against my back.  She is aroused, but she arches away.  I feel separation.  The open space air breathes words of comfort, Dear John letters, and pours tea with leaves of boredom talk.  As if checking her hair in the mirror, she looks far away as she speaks nothingness. 

In the horizon of the watercolor sky, I hear laughter, sense intensity and complete immersion.  Panicked, I know she sees the artist residency, too.  Energy vibrates off of the collaborative arts channeling...it tantalizes.  For her, the art camaraderie is riveting and avant-garde and innovation and modern progress.  She envisions throwing herself in the scorching skyscape of these new artists, dousing herself with oil pigments, wiping away my fingerprints with linseed oil and the burnt sienna of the past. 

In one elegant move, she slips from my clenching hold and steps her charcoal bruised legs to the ground, letting go.  Completely freeing herself, she shoves my back away from her with embossing fingertips.    

Apathy.

Apathy is worse than hatred. 

Tears fill my eyes, but stay, never dropping, as if to shield me from watching her leave.  In desperate refusal, I pull the canvas quickly off my easel and rip her away from the inflamed sky.  Fraying the edges of the ungessoed love, I separate her from any other artist, any other future. 

"You cannot leave me.  You are my life-"  I shrill the words, "You are Life."

Moving quickly, I frame Art's presence. Seizing her energy - even her apathy - I capture her passion for art, her mid-sentence seduction of another, her restlessness.  I frame her within wood confines, tightened for extra caution.  I carefully and methodically add a hanger to the back, even though her paint is still wet from her longing for more. 

Then,

with an artist's high and an affirming nod,
I share her
only

with the wall.

Sacrifice

With heated prayer, his weathered hands smear red clay paste of wind and rain on the men's faces.  Hoods gift his son, his brother darkness. 

"Ready..Aim"  

Gunshots travel NC ground.

In unison, Tsali's body tremors, slumps. Awaiting death, he lifts proudly. His last Cherokee breath inhales deeply creating a bull's-eye of Future.

Tsali's Sacrifice