Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Surface
i was a string when the power
chords believed in parking
lots and the frets
of the lines of the spaces
we share were
shining white with
elegance and scary divisions
that the sacred
beach-sand-capo makes
us drive
at a higher pitch
than we're used to being .. But
in screaming
in an E scale
i talk to me with
fluorescent windstorms and ivory
singing about
gun-shy rain drops
and streaks of a raiments day.
it's love.. but
by the time i hear the clatter
of the distance that i scatter
every heart inside my chest that matters
wishes for a closer way.
and still the lovechords sing.
and still the lovechords sing.
and still the lovechords sing. and
be it why or
be it for or
be it by
the lack of more- she
is the only
star i ever see. it's love.
Drive...
the brickwork is always made
of symmetry until it's
always, distanced from
the with(it)all, abjectly
objectively object to the object
made of tenses and context
made of "now if ever!" through
the lenses... and a
foreign translation of "i love you"
stands up and down on presences and pretenses; a
pseudonym for
every sensation it owns.
i keep smelling a sunrise
as i walk the halls.
and i keep feeling
something soft
graze me from
behind as a creature
crawls into my hand to
hold it to its own
for a safe warm
place to be
in a world
where
pockets
aren't
enough.
edge of Physics
"the rules of thirds are all over my hands"
said the pretty person with paintbrush antennae
"and i can't shake
them off for
twice the life
of me!"
and feet crossed and crissed
over and over as they tiptoed toward
each other,
a scimitar hiding in the grassy
bristles like
a cat on the prowl
on the desert plain of his heart.
but here i am carrying my thrice-aforetimed,
left-handed,
left-footed,
left-hearted talking tongue,
acting like i can smudge and shade
the conversation in such a way that convinces them all
that they're
actually all on a single piece of paper.
and i ctrl-z,
ctrl-z,
ctrl-z
you all the way back
to me with my self-control; the
alternative only
one key away and the outerspace-bar only one
further- i walk at the sky
and build brick walls on my shoulders
just to keep me focused
on the far away as i breathe
in either either or either, my
eyes shut to keep
them focused on the
shadows... back to ground... i
push my self through the sand and
wonder why i ever
left my hand and my foot
and my heart behind.
the cursor blinks . . . I
Friday, March 28, 2008
moon person
a crescent deciphers the code
in its arms
and how do you spell a sigh
when the moon is
defined by its shadow
and silence is a verb
every time i talk
with it.. she
dances across the hemisphere
and pulls the pins out of
her hair
while the axles in her
ankles and the
transmission in her
lungs whirls inside
her body to
fling her at the sky.
"i'll be the world around you if
you promise
not to rocket ship
away"
it said as she stopped and,
breathing through her hair, she
slouched one side with a smile
and took the string to the kite of my heart,
its tail aflutter in the evening breeze.
oceans and
oceans and
oceans and
big water hold the continents apart...
but word has it i walk and keep talking
with the silent spelling
in my heart as
if by means of my moon-person eyes
i watch the sunrise
sweep across my world.
and with that i keep
watching
always watching
always watching,
stay watching her shine.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
collaboration
for what is a miracle
when i’m nothing but this.. As i’m
drying out
my pastel powder, scattering
my heart to every corner
of this place
but i’m rearranging my body
into this candle as candelabra
is quaintly a wick made
of something
we can’t quite define (take a breath) .....
and on your package,
they’ve
reassured
to one particular mass,
to one particular audience,
unto one particular people
and set to divide up the stage
as the dance
floor folds itself up
into a paper swan
and flies unto the night with
my love letter on its wings that
your non-toxic candor
is ready to mark up the stratosphere
however, little one however,
I’m ready just quite,
and prepared for combat when i say
i’m not apt to judge
anything from another
but non-toxic is relative,
if you’re talking einstein and the speed
of your heart is half-hearted as I’ve stepped onto the
scene just in
time for all
three kids in my
teacup to
eat you
alive.
to dine for
to dine for
and for some reason the fact that we’re talking on a napkin
suddenly makes it
that much more poetic
as folds divide
everything we say in two
and the ink we’re talking in
and the graphite we’re thinking in
and the watercolors in which we believe
is
bleeding through
every
layer of our recycled selves
.but then as i unfold
your whispers
[apart(yes i know)] from each other
to make this is— this sheet
that spits
every word we argue
onto the counter top,
like the tears of coffee through the filter
just like that, just like that, you’re saying everything
over again
from a thousand
different
directions. calling it symmetry like a coffee filter
snowflake
as one-of-a-kind
as every grain of salt in every grain of sea,
but you’re sneaking under,
[one layer at a time]
trying to say something yesterday,
hiding in your brackets
and behind the crescent of your
paren(thesis)
to make everything
i know now
an elaboration..
they’re all starting their days the wrong
way
and still you still keep still
,talking
with the
radio.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
sheathes
Sheath
Is a tragedy
what
We're
a
F
t
e
R
?
since
Then... let's ascertain
design
When what]?
the axis of the earth
prevents
time
from
being all
we know
it to be.
a nettle for a flower
in the forest designed
to
eat
us all
alive.
a slope intercept for a love letter and a piece of feel for a number;
we're colder than we used to be.
this however, love, is not inside
her.
oh Evening of
destiny and des
ig
Nation.....
i didn't think you'd tell your secret
to the world.
but don't give me that& you piece of love
i've always known
where you
come from
with too
irr
ation
al
a claim.
................thenikeptwalkingtomythemesong.
and left out the punctuation
i could tell was too distracting
to say aloud as i said
all i had to say aloud.
my heart in my hands
Creases
my sometimes paper airplane
lost altitude just above the coffee table
and shot
into the walls
as it cut the stucco clouds in two..
and the
colonies in the carpet
ran for shelter in the
corners of
their world as i or it or maybe this
might or may be or is
an exaggeration
but i think paper cuts just barely
started falling from the sky
when i as if it calculated in itself
a way to say or scream or be
or know
that this aint up to me
after my fingers let it go
as all i can say is if i could
or would
or can or will do
anything again
i will or would or should
close the window as i blame the draft
for its lack of trust
in the currents of the wind though
i know i folded all the creases wrong.
and now your origami heart
is diving in after the vessel,
paper-cutting up the loveseat like
the initials on a park bench where
the gap in the wooden
planks breathes right through the word forever.
and here we lie,
dead in the living room
and what we last see before our eyes shut
are the faces we find in the texture
on the ceiling
but such is the life
of a warrior
with a flower
in his
hand.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
define
eitherly
My name is Skylar McClellan.
I’m a boy.
I am twenty years old and I’m the kind of person who looks over his shoulder
even when I’m leaning up against a wall.
Not in fear or paranoia though.
More so with a sense of curiosity.
I’ve been an artist since I was three. You know... one of those obsessive little boys who lies on the
living room carpet for hours playing with my fingers on a notebook of lined yellow legal paper
drawing dinosaurs and animals and landscapes while the rest of the universe watches.
Over the years, I’ve always had an affinity for the sideways ways
of abstraction and saying things in such a fashion that inspires more of a
poetic spark than what we might call reason.
I have a very definite philosophy about art and that’s based on a few concepts that of course
aren’t new because what is..? But that doesn’t change the fact that I mean them
I’ve never been a fan of using very much color. I do occasionally use it in a very discreet manner
but generally stick with black and white.
This is because I believe that art is creation on such a pure level that when color is used to make something beautiful, that’s hardly ever more than taking something that’s already there and putting it somewhere else. Like recording a family of canaries sing their tiny hearts away and calling it my masterpiece symphony just because I’m the one who moved the sound from this side of the universe to the side where your ears happened to be.
A grayscale color scheme is what I use to try (otiose as it most likely may be) to defeat the threat of plagiarizing nature or humanity. This isn’t to say that artists who use color aren’t talented or that they don’t create beautiful things with what they do because they do. An artist’s talent isn’t at question when we talk about this because what someone is and what someone does are two very different things.
One should reflect the other, naturally.
But it’s nothing short of a variable.
Which leads to the second little bullet point on the grocery list of my philosophy.
Anyone can draw.
Drawing is a skill. It’s learned.
I had an art teacher in junior high school tell me that he had to start
teaching the class. For some reason he had no other choice. I can’t remember why he had to. I mean circumstances do that sometimes... They get all crazy and stuff...
But the problem was that he couldn’t draw. But he had to try to teach this class. So he taught the mechanics of it all and he got the children drawing and everything was going fine until a kid would raise his hand and ask him to show them how to do something. And he’d try and he’d fail over and over again because he’d just never given it enough attention throughout his life.
So he went home and started practicing what he was teaching... the mechanics and the movements and the ways that all of his lesson books taught. So by the time my grade had gotten to him, he could do it just fine. Pictures he’d drawn lined the top edge of all four walls.
They were mostly cartoons.
Things that already existed.
Hardly evidence of any talent.
This taught me this.
Drawing is a mechanical process. It’s moving your hand like this
with this thing that has this stuff in it right here.
What you draw... is the art.
What you’re saying is the poetry. The spelling comes after. The rhyming comes after. The
punctuation comes after. What you say... is what you’re saying. Period.
This is why I’m annoyed when people ask me if I can draw something specific like when someone runs up to me
and: “Hey! Do you know how to draw a giraffe???”
And I say “does it exist?”
“What? Yes.”
“Can I see it with my eyes?”
“Um yeah, you self righteous little prick.”
“Then yes. Yes I can. And so can you.”
And they storm off while I smile with the satisfaction that I’ve once again successfully protected my endeavor to decimate my social life.
..................................................I’m actually so completely kidding and not like that at all.
I’m actually pretty charming in fact.
Um.
Third concept.
Talent is not the talent either.
As established:
● The act of drawing or building an image or anything for that
matter... is all mechanical.
● What you draw is the art.
But the talent itself is something that no
one should ever be impressed with because talent is as a dime a dozen as cliche sayings like “dime a dozen.” Everyone has talent. Everyone is amazing at something.
It’s what puts the hue is “human”
What you do with it is what people really look at.
What you actually end up creating... the layers... a project you set yourself on that
turns into something phenomenal... That is what people will see a
million times and still look twice when they look again.
Just like with simple art. Or abstract art. Art that looks like a five year old could do it.
The kind of art that people who don’t know what
they’re talking about look at and say:
“look at that! I could sneeze and make something just as artistic as that! It’s just a bunch of random dots and lines and they call that priceless!? If that painting is priceless, then my two year old baby must be a billionaire by now because he’s made plenty of drawings just like that with his peanut butter!”
To that person, let me say two things...
First: stop feeding your baby peanut butter because I’m tired of cleaning up his masterpieces.
Second..... Do it. If you could sneeze and create something priceless, then do it and make a fortune. Because then I really would be impressed. The difference between your sneeze / Tyke’s peanut butter drawings and this alleged “random” masterpiece is the person who created that priceless work of art that you don’t understand probably didn’t sneeze to make it. It probably isn’t random. He or she probably sat there for hours or days or weeks to fine tune every single “random” smear of peanut butter on that canvass to make it so exactly how it is that they could look at it and point to any variance between it and a counterfeit.
Simple art is still art. It’s still expressive. It’s still doing exactly what something extravagant is doing.
It’s still where it is and
what it is because it was built and put there at the hand of incentive.
As opposed to the assumed respiratory reaction to the stuff the world
keeps cramming up your nose.
It’s like when someone with a college degree in English cusses or uses slang to make a point because they’re masters and everyone knows it so everyone notices it when they say something simple because it’s usually also profound as ever. I’m not calling myself a master of anything because I’m not. But that’s the idea that I draw from when I draw something simple.
Example: what I like to call my signature. The stick men I draw constantly, always doing and saying and being and feeling and knowing things. They’re called ‘eyelashes.’ And every one of them has a voice. They are meant to be very tiny simple people saying very big complicated things. And I try very hard to make them what they are. They know what they’re talking about. So trust them.
I know I do.
All in all and in conclusion and henceforth and whatnot...
I’m obsessed with this.
So I really do hope you can enjoy it because
I’ve worked hard to try to create a universe worth knowing by name.
Email address: eitherly@gmail.com