Cheryl Snell's Blog, page 26

Tough Room

In the room, one eyes

the exit. Next week

she won't come, next week

they'll miss her. Well. Some will.

Some don't – and it's only when

the second goes off

in search of the first

that the third peels away

to find her absent audience.

Outside the context of the room

she doesn't know

what One & Two look like

and so searches aimlessly,

sometimes for years, until she forgets

what she was trying to find. She would like to

return to the room to start over

but other rooms just like it have sprung up

so she enters the idea of the room instead.

She sits down at a table

and strangers fill the seats inside her head

When she begins to speak

it's at the precise point at which

she left off.

Krishna Jayanthi

It's the birthday of Lord Krishna, who was born in a prison. In paintings, we see the baby carried by his father across a swollen stream protected by a seven-headed serpent.



Devotees ask one another kannan onga veetukku vandacha? That's "has Kannan come to your house?" to you, and if the grandmother of the house has dipped the youngest child's feet in flour to make footprints in the hall leading from the front door to the shrine, the answer is a qualified yes. We can imagine that Krishna has come to celebrate with us. Otherwise, there are little silver cutouts of feet you can get at the store.



To observe the day, offerings of butter and yogurt are made in Krishna's image,and there are sweets made from jaggery called vella cheedai. Delicious as this treat is, there is no competition with murukku, a crispy snack made with rice and dal, flavored with cumin, sesame, and chili powder. That's an old favorite at our house. I'm going to make you hungry now, fair warning:







Gopalkala is an interesting part of Janmashtami celerbrations. A Dahi Handi, the pot of milk, curd, butter, fruit juices and Gopalkala (Soak beaten rice for fifteen minutes. Melt some ghee in another pan, toss in cumin seeds. Add finely chopped chilies and ginger. Add rice and salt it. Sprinkle it with sugar and grated coconut)is hanged with a rope at a height, and a pyramid of celebrants try to break it. The winner is showered with colored water.



About that human pyramid and pinata: my husband remembers a passer-by turning a hose on the boy at the top just to make it more difficult for him to strike the pinata. Nobody sued! If you want to know more about all this, Jennifer Kumar will enlighten you here.



I wrote a poem inspired by the idea of Krishna, and offer it in the spirit of celebration through Western eyes:



Avatar



The boy sits astride the dagger of land,

watching jesus lizards skip toward the bottom

of the world. From his left hand, the moon rises.

In his right, he catches the setting sun.



Pilgrims come to witness the phenomenon.

With cones of bhel-poori in their hands, they watch

blue shadows lengthen in the boy's brain.

A shiver ascends the knuckles of his father's spine.



In the temple, the father sits with back bowed.

His head is in his hands. Quarter-tones float past

like speech obscured by a trick of air.



From the sanctuary of carved white pillars,

priests with sun-bleached eyes chant slokas.

Against a cycle of relentless beginning,

they believe that nothing ever dies,

though the world is made of tears and sweat.

The sea.

Torn Kiss

at the lips

a weak current

and a captive behind the teeth.



to wake with your heart in my mouth --

I must have tracked it in my sleep,

night falling like limbs all around us

Red Fez

My digital poem Inspiration is up at Red Fez. I used a character called Failed Child Actress from the Xtra Normal site. I think she looks a little like me. :)

openings (for Janet)

It's my pleasure to present to you a poem by Tim Buck about my sister Janet's art:





Her selection of pigments glistens on a palette,



pigments vibrating in rhythms of probability --



stochastic atoms of colors matching synapses.







The canvas seems infinite, a white ground bass.



And music will complement her morning brushes --



Scriabin or Miles? Chopin or Tom's 3/4 cadence?



Ah...Debussy will spread his eiusive prismatics!







What will emerge?







It's not for me to know how she opens the portals of dream and vision.







But phantoms come, and forms of feeling



become masses hanging in strange balance.



Deep fall the eyes into that opening rendered.



Wild is the way that spirits clothe themselves



in chromatic meaning, then aesthetically whisper



into the pensive Moment haunting brushed fabric --



melancholia and suspense, death and wan Eros.







It's not for me to call this magic or miracle of color between now and numinous.







Or...a muted drama of black ink and charcoal



performing metamorphosis in titanium white.







Objects without name are apparitions



made of what this painters is feeling,



in hues wrought from mineral slience



to uncover modes of arcane space.







A slow grinding of inuitions into image opiums.



A grinding of elements into immanent powders,



releasing powers of shaman, seer, oracle.







Sienna, umber, ochre, madder.



Cobalt, chrome, cadmium, copper.



And the blues! -- brilliant or nocturnal.



An alchemy transmuting on incantations!







A spellbound mixing of slow ecstatic oils



into inspiration, dark-gleaned discovery,



bringing affective texture to presence.











But sometimes I do wonder...



just what is happening underneath



this paint and these ghostly forms?







If I stared too long, if eyes fell too deeply,



I might see too much, go mad inside layers.

F.A.K.E.

4 Interpretations of Webern's Variations for Piano Op 27 Variation 1 (Go...

Sviatoslav Richter plays Bach Fantasia & Fugue in A Minor

Up the Staircase

Have a look at the new Up the Staircase Quarterly. It's an all poetry issue, and I'm pleased to have a piece in it.

Digital Poem in IMP

I have a digital poem featuring my sister Janet's paintings in the debut issue of

IMPpress. They use Issuu and our piece is on page 42. Thanks, Jay Arr!