Charybdis
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Profiles

ABOUT THE ART

It is mostly garbage.
Essentially, if not aesthetically.
Every piece consists of materials that were refuse collected from home, work & out on the street over the course of the past twelve years or more.

Many of the elements were handed to me with the question, "Would you put that in the trash?"
As you can plainly see, my answer was, typically, "No."

The beautifully ironic or ironically ugly fact about litter as a resource is that it is so abundant.

My objective is to salvage that which has been deemed useless, prevent it from becoming fodder for the landfill & give it new life as art.

POETRY

Modern Movies

it can no longer be
the wink
and the poison in the drink
or the curl of the lip
and the subtle slip
it must be the chase
and the spit in the face

drama
is not to throw things and yell
but to drop them and not say a word

let things lie and they break all the same



jaz/1999.

cats & kittens

he started it

she had the upper hand

she need not have split
she could easily have stuck around

made him pay

for fucking with her
in the first place

but she gave up
cut her losses
quit while she was ahead
and sped off to the dish to get a bite to eat instead

dissatisfied
he gave chase
got all up in her face

but by then it was too late

she was busy
preoccupied
he bored her

so she won

he had paid the price after all

and it was all he could do
to make a good show of it

to return to his bed

stylishly

as stylishly as possible
anyway

so now
he is up to it
again
back to his old tricks



jaz/1999.

Hey Pretty Girl

is what this man said one day on the train
to try to explain this woman
who has just as much body as brain
& even though his efforts were ultimately vain

hey nothing ventured nothing gained right

so there they were
two perspectives through four eyes strained
yet another first glance a second or two too long sustained
for that comfortable ignorance to be maintained

whether it is genuine
appreciation or sexual
intimidation or racial
discrimination or spiritual inspiration

it is simply impossible
yet impossibly simple
to know in a moment

that she is more than just a pretty face or a pleasant view

in fact she knows more
about the quark than you
& could teach us all a thing or two
about marijuana as medicine

but you would never guess
from the way she looks
in that cute little dress
that underneath it all she is on a quest

yes
a different breed of cat lover
making more than just trouble
& dark coffee in my house as a guest

also aware that substance defies objectification

if you only knew how lucky that cigarette was
the self conscious tremble when she walks in the room
just going about her business would be replaced
by a smile smacked across your face

the way the poem falls onto the page
or the sun wiggles up under your clothes
if you slow down
long enough to let it

these stories seem absurd as mismatched socks
willy loman meets holly golightly & fat rocks
& green toenail polish & sweet dreams
every nights sleep happily everlasting afterlife

pretty girl


jaz/1999.

The meaningless lament of the honest hypocrite.

act one

a courier pigeon flew overhead with a message for anyone but him.
so he thought.
so he bought a ticket with the blood money
freshly squeezed from the stone he found
in the living room of his glass house.

his plan was to escape.

to quiet the dischord and quell the yearning.

maybe tomorrow. never today it seemed.

he dreamed the dream of the orphaned child
suddenly remembered by remorseful parents
who return to wake him from his fitful, sleepless turmoil.

who was he?
he believed he was the antithesis of his kind.
the pinnacle of the paragon of animals.

ironically, he was as mousy in nature as he was manly in stature
with leonine features that a poacher tried capture on film.

wordplay specialist. nondenominational moral perfectionist.
inventor by default. documentarian by association
taskmaster forced to twiddle his thumbs in early retirement.

contrary to all his efforts, he was, in fact, the dictionary definition of a man: species. gender.

he cringed every morning at the number
of long ago forgotten observations that he had neglected
to write down.

the great thoughts always seemed to come at moments
when, whether too tired or sick, too depressed or stimulated,
he was unable to pick up the pen. tranquility. stupor. agony.

at an impromptu critique of his poetry,
a reviewer cited the works as having many brilliant fragments
but too few in succession.
life does, then, imitate art.

pavlov would be proud to know
that societal conditioning had seen to it
that discouragement reached his doorstep
to ward off the knock of opportunity.

perhaps, by saving the paper the rejection letter is printed on,
he was doing his part to reduce forest depletion.

or so he thought.

the coffee in this shop was diluted. not nearly as good as it was reputed to be.
his concentration was weak as hell as well. too much so to suit his particular tastes.
but he drank it down anyway lest it be a waste.

he was late.

but he walked because he had no faith
in public transportation unless he could see the bus or train coming.
otherwise, he feared, he may wait forever.

he became frustrated at the woman and her daughter
with arms full of laundry and groceries, took up the whole sidewalk.

as he passed, the little girl asked her mother if she believed that god was the sun.

difficult as it was, he altered his pace without coming to dead halt
or looking otherwise obvious in his intention to overhear the response.

nonchalantly, he looked back to see the moment.

somehow, even though he had been so overtaken with the image
that he had neglected to register the explanation, he knew that she had given the right answer.


jaz/1999.

on the job

there seems to be some virtue
in being a novice carpenter

first day on the construction sight
looking for some right thing to do

the correct tool, the proper way
to make sense of this overwhelming
pile of disorder

underfoot
thereby discovering
two heart shaped holes in the floorboards nearby

one perfect and smaller but more obscure
the other larger and more abstract but obvious

amid these
raw materials in an empty shell
while watching the dust fall through these

two heart shaped holes nearby

thereby disovering
underfoot
that this is reality

noone would believe these
two heart shaped holes

he cannot believe them himself these
two heart shaped holes nearby
but this is reality

nature did this
not man
two heart shaped holes in the floorboards nearby

"we'll just build over that..."

so back to work
but all the while he is lost
in being a novice carpenter
and wondering
when the next conversation with his father will be
as the other men
consider lunch
and the chatter of the dealer on the corner
echoes through
the hollowness around them all

having little or no faith
in mankind
leaves him uncertain
as to what kind of man he needs to be
in order to preserve his structural integrity

looking for signs
to present themselves
he finds only this:

"warning.
these premises are protected by trained attack dogs.
survivors will be prosecuted."

which is almost humorous
but what saddens him
even more than the fact

(animals suborned such
beautiful beasts bred souless
solely to hound and haunt and guard
raw materials in an empty shell)

is the fiction


jaz/2000.

Those Cardinals

Some birds stay despite the winter
to build stronger nests, bury the vanishing seeds,
rising to find the places that the heat goes.
A little boy on his knees watches
The vivid color of his vanity

against the blank canvas of snow
and sunflowers, stalks black
with exhaustion that bend graciously
to surrender their final offerings;
The freshly frozen dust of the season

He knows better than to take the hummingbird's
sounds as encouragement. The boy hears the song
of the woman he will love forever one day,
the notes, the chords that make him fret
even though he knows better.

His sighs fog the glass. His fingers smudge the paint.
Grandma orders the pantry properly
& hangs the old curtains
The other grandchildren are still in bed
safe from the cold & the curses.

The jealous cardinals peer in from the porch.
They would agree with grandma.
The dog should not be on the couch
The boy should not be on the floor
in his good clothes, but it is warm where they are.

A lean coyote screams
& the fat kittens will finally be gladdened.
The cardinals fade above it all
in their frigid slumber.


jaz/2003.