painting – Susan Joy Clark

Creative Life, Poetry

Lost in a Painting #Laugh Along a Limerick

I once had a strange, wacky dream

Where lost in a painting, I seemed,

There an elephant goes,

With a horn for its nose,

Better this than Munch’s The Scream.

This was a response to Esther’s Challenge for a Laugh Along a Limerick, to write a limerick that included the word dream. At first, I was looking to Salvador Dali for inspiration, but, searching the Internet, I came across this surrealistic art by Vladimir Kush. Do you notice that the antelope has a lyre between its horns, the foliage is also made of horns and that there are musical notations in the cloud shapes? It is bizarre, fantastical and dreamy but not unpleasant. In fact, an explanation on Kush’s site talks about “a fresh, positive side of surrealism.”

Celebrating Creativity

Bubbles (An Old Poem of Dad’s)

Dad recently messaged me with a few old poems from his youth, and I thought I would republish one here.

Bubbles

Never trust a bubble,

Though it bobbles in the air,

Or drifting gently there,

Does allure.

Though it twinkles in the light

With colorful delight,

Don’t be sure.

Though you very lightly grasp it,

Though you very gently clasp it

Like a dunce;

All at once,

Nothing first,

It will burst.

My dad was a physics major at New York University and was a senior scientist at ITT, accumulating 44 patents over his time there. He was working on things like voice recognition and GPS long before these became common terms everyone knew. He also invented many things to help out the U.S. military and worked on a secure telephone that President Reagan used. Many who know him might be surprised at his artistic side, but he wrote a lot of poems in his youth.

I have a great aunt on dad’s side who had some accomplishments as a painter and poet. Below is one of her poetry books.

One Thanksgiving, a cousin on dad’s side, who has appointed himself as our family historian, shared all sorts of stories about Great Aunt Marie and showed me a different poetry book of hers that he has. I never met my great aunt, but I found it all fascinating. I Googled my great aunt and was surprised at what I found. I was able to order the book above from Amazon, which actually came from a used bookstore in California, and was even an autographed copy. I’ve been meaning to post about this in detail for a long time, so stay tuned …

Creative Life, Dog poetry, It's a Doggy Dog World, Poetry

The Dreamers, #Poem

Here, we drift, floating quietly,

Along a dreamy, silver sea,

All my six furry friends and me.

Max, he dreams of his buried bones,

Rupert dreams of the hearth at home,

Chance dreams of bacon of his own.

George dreams of Frisbees in the air,

Winston dreams of old boots, a pair,

Rex dreams of an old comfy chair,

And we slip adrift on a pillowed cloud,

With only pleasant dreams allowed,

All seven of us — a small crowd.

Into a book’s pages I fell,

Dreaming of the stories I’ll tell,

My pen dipped into my inkwell,

And we fly along an azure sky,

‘Til our siesta passes by,

Me and six furry friends of mine.

I’m sharing this with dVerse’s Open Link Night. I was looking through my picture files for poetry inspiration and found this copy of artwork by Lisa Finch. I just love it for several reasons. Many of you know that I have an animal care business, so that was one reason. I love the glamour of the female character here, the fact that she has fallen asleep with an open book and the title of the artwork which is also “The Dreamers,” which seemed to speak of imagination and creativity.

Lisa Finch has an Etsy shop where she sells some of her work on canvas and also prints and note cards. I perused it and found so many more pieces that I enjoy. Animals seem to be a common theme, not just pets but wild and exotic animals as well. Many of her pieces seem to have a sort of female Dr. Doolittle character. She has some fantasy and almost surrealistic scenes with some old Hollywood glamour combined in there. I almost feel I should revisit for an art-themed post.