MEDUSA'S HAIR

A beautiful woman once told me that the only way to love a woman is to worship her like your Goddess. Try it men... it opens the gates of love. The Goddess takes many forms... not all of them are pretty. Poor old Perseus could not look into the eyes of his Goddess lest he be turned to stone... so he looked into the mirror of his shield and cut off the head of his true love and turned his love to stone. Or you could be Paris and choose between the Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, Hera, Goddess of the Hearth, or Aphrodite, Goddess of Beauty. Young men choose Aphrodite, middle-aged men choose Hera, great men choose Athena. The irony is they are one and the same and found in each and every woman we truly love. My love Katmandu has amazing hair... dreadlocks in a Minoan crown.I gave my Goddess Medusa’s hair but she has the vision of wisdom and the soft bosom of solace. 

A TALE OF TWO CITIES (with a nod to Leonardo)

Where are you from? Can you tell your story just with reference to the city of your birth... the city of your death? My cities: Montreal, Minneapolis, Calgary.... now Saskatoon. My towns... St Donat, Inuvik, Crowsnest Pass, Pincher Creek, Lethbridge, Placencia, High River. Write now... sit me down... I will tell you the story of each of these places. They are as much a part of me as my shoulders, my kneecaps, my ear lobes. Katmandu, my traveling companion, the love of my life.... my Goddess comes from Toronto and lives in Saskatoon. Hence the two cities in my painting. An allusion to the cities as if they were dream cities not the real YONGE and BLOOR or SPADINA CRESCENT. My challenge in this work.... create aerial perspective... the great lesson my Italian Godfather Leonardo taught me. The colour of a landscape adopts the colour of the sky as it disappears into the distance. Life is short. “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” to quote my born-to-be-wild friend Paul Gauguin adrift in Tahiti after Paris and a season with my sad brother Vincent in Arles. Read “Invisible Cities” by that other Italian... Italo Calvino. Then you will know exactly what it means to come from a city.

SHAPE SHIFTERS

Who are we really? Are we the selves we see in the mirror in the morning as we shave the stubble from our cheeks and chins? Are we the masks of beauty we apply with the mascara brush and lipstick to our aging faces? Are we the strands of DNA that coil like prism snakes in the centers of our cells?Are we the prisoners of our own minds? Are we the memories in the vaults of our temporal lobes? Are we the citizens of a city that cites us in its censuses? Are we the brothers and sisters and sons and daughters and mothers and fathers of all those nuclear families? Am I my driver’s license photograph? Am I the Viking warrior I saw in the flames of the campfire under the Aurora Borealis? Are you the flower girl at the coronation of the Babylonian queen that you saw in the Forget-Me-Nots under the sunflowers that afternoon in late July? We have been here and elsewhere in many universes in many eternities many times before...... Battista Sforza, the duchess of Montefeltro from the castle in Urbino in the hill country of Rimini. Kathryn my wife. See one. See the other. And who is the Kathryn that shines beyond them all? That is the Goddess I wish to paint. We shift shapes, we shape shifters like the sky changes from dawn to dusk. It is very beautiful. It glows with possibility. Yes!

GODDESS

I’m the type of girl who butters toast from edge to edge.

No moth balls in my fur-lined cedar chest.

 I’ m a contradiction... simple as a caress. 

 I’m complicated as a hissy fit... “wanna see me jealous?”

 Dread-lock gypsy queen with Bach embedded in my bones.

 Make-believe .... a miscarriage or a poem.

I‘m the blue jean Venus at the Rodeo Dance. 

It ain’t easy being a goddess in a frozen land.

One part snow and one part mall, lake trout in a pan. 

I’m the gothic girl with a nose ring in Matane.

The grande dame at the opera in Chicoutmi.

I know the Micmac & the Cree for “just bite me!”

Medusa or Madonna, It’s Kali or the Queen of Spades

Aphrodite or the Sphinx you  gotta choose the only one &

If you look me in the eye, gonna stone you green as Jade

So, Bring me all your honey and i ‘ll shine you like the sun

So, Bring me all your honey and i ‘ll shine you like the sun

Get on your knees, do not beg, you needy man.

A little groveling never hurt ...you better make me laugh.

So, bring me a Chardonnay &  draw me a bath.

State your name and reason why, but never turn your back.

I’m a sweat suit  Nana with a Louis Vuitton bag.

3 dozen pink and one red rose I command... I command!!!!

Medusa or Madonna, It’s Kali or the Queen of Spades

Aphrodite or the Sphinx you  gotta choose the only one &

If you look me in the eye, gonna stone you green as Jade

So, Bring me all your honey and i ‘ll shine you like the sun

So, Bring me all your honey and i ‘ll shine you like the sun

EDGAR ALLAN CROW - words for a song

                 

When I was a young man I caught me a crow

He only had one wing, the other broke

He dragged it behind him & could not fly

I named him for that Raven guy

I found him in the coulee, below the willow

& I built him a cage to fit my window

& I was a pirate of the prairie snow

His burning eyes, his coat of brilliant coal

Backed into the corner, my red hot cage

Bit my finger with a twisting rage

Never took my offered love or my table scraps

He tore to shreds my precious treasure maps

                    Crows know what crows know

                    & Edgar he said no & no & no

                    He watched out the window

                    Looking for his woman crow

                    Calling calling always calling

                    Looking for his woman crow

He escaped my prison & I let him go

Dragging his busted wing and crowing so

Maybe the coyotes got him, maybe the snow

Oh nevermore, nevermore; my one wing crow

Edgar Allen Nevermore in the knotted pine

He never was... no, he never was mine

                    Crows know what crows know

                    & Edgar he said no & no & no

                    He watched out the window

                    Looking for his woman crow

                    Calling calling always calling

                    Looking for his woman crow

A MURDER OF CROWS

A challenge. Paint birds flying. Paint crows flying. Crows are master aviators. They look like they are flying with wings made from the tattered strips of the night sky. They own grace. They choose to take it easy. They love the shamble. They are the Walter Matthaus, the Neil Youngs, the Janis Joplins of the sky. They are the motor cycle gang. Always going somewhere...no rush. No straight lines for my shadow friends. They get where they need to go. Crow love is permanent. Unlike the human kind they mate for life. They sing the blues... or should we call it the blacks. Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Louis Armstrong. It ain’ pretty but it gets the job done. They eat the dead. So what? Why waste a smorgasbord just because it’s a day or two cold. And sure as shootin’ they have figured us bozos out. A cinch. Gypsies in black velvet conning the dupes. A murder of crows. What better pall bearers for a suicide? Taking the white soul up high over the CROW near the SEVEN SISTERS away from the four corners of the globe. Crows are happy to be alive. They survive. They get the joke. Caw caw. CAW

NO MORE (for SJD 1988-2011)

No more begging in the parking lot... . 
No more weed that needs be bought... . 

No more sleeping on basement floors... . 
No more wizard / warrior course... . 

No more melody no perfect pitches... . 
No more wallet with sacred promises... . 

No more Reggae no Pink Floyd... . 
No more boys who beat up boys... . 

No more girls who turn away... . 
No more Pleides no milky way... . 

No more pocketing the piggy bank change... . 
No more walks in the labyrinth maze... . 

No more grey eyes no more fingers... . 
No more Cap’n Crunch for dinner... . 

No more mickeys of bath tub Gin... .
No more bikes in the winter wind... . 

No more rushing the waves at Tofino... . 
No more ones & no more zero... . 

No more fixing my wedding vows... . 
No more branding Uncle’s yearling cows... . 

No more signing gramma’s cheques... . 
No more wondering what come’s next... . 

No more drumming on the pawn shop snare... . 
No more bareback on the greenbroke mare... . .

No more 12 step serenity prayer... . 
No more sitting in the hot tub vapour... . 

No more jackpot on the VLT ... . 
No more sleeping on the LRT... . 

No more paddles in the red canoe... . 
No more cans of HUNGRY MAN soup... . 

No more fingers on the piano keys.... 
No more sunsets in the evening heat.... 

No more Judas no more Jesus... . 
No more trying so hard to please us... . 

No more spits from the grade six kids... . 
No more Bartok on your fingertips... . 

No more schemes to hunt for gold... . 
No more jumping into the swimming hole... . 

No more black thoughts no more blue... . 
No more Lao Tzu that only you knew... . 

No more web page no more cell... .
No more naked in a prison cell... . 

No more sleeping in the sunshine bed.... 
No more silver ring that said..... 

“This too.... this too will pass”... . 
No more climbing the steel and glass... . 

No more crawling in the aisles... . 
No more walking miles & miles... . 

No more judges no policeman... . 
No more second hand Aero star van... . 

No more twin towers coming down... . 
No more calls from some little town... . 

No more camping in the rain... . 
No more sorrow no more pain... .

No more anger no more shame... . 
No more thoughts of who’s to blame... .