The Green Silence

I was runner up to your queen.
You fulfilled all your obligations.
I languished as understudy.

I never learned to be true blue.
Green suited me better.

A black hole to your rising sun,
a whirling pit of negativity,
a weed in shadow
while your rose bloomed.

I lived on leftovers,
the queue of mediocrity,
the rejects, wannabes and never weres,
the Calibans longing for Miranda.

Wearing a leather jacket 
doesn't make you Joey Ramone.

Caliban learned to hate
what he could never possess.
Passion becomes poison
whispering in the dark.

Blue roses never bloom,
stunted in their growth.
My betrayal blossomed
in reptilian silence.
The greenery flourished.

Heartless

Your heart trembled in my hands;
my eyes, blind.
The men were my mirror.
My self work so much
spilled semen on satin sheets.

You left your door open.  
I chose the window.
I thought he was my vision quest,
my knight in the sweat lodge.

He clanked in,
full of answers
to the wrong questions.

I left you; lost you;
your heart so much shrapnel 
beneath my hooves,
charging the wrong way.

Just Be

Everything you ever did wrong
you wanted to fix with me, 
your tweaked rerun.
The casting was all wrong.

A bean sprouted from disappointed dreams,
I went off script, losing 
the pink swirls, the tea parties,
and the porcelain dolls.

Your prototype miscarried 
into gothic horror,
tarot card spreads and spirits
calling from the darkness.

My wings didn't sprout.
The tiara never fit.
My shields failed.

Layers of masks;
the paint is peeling.
Alterations and cuts,
the skin doesn't fit.

I struggle to breathe; to cut;
I'm corseted into the wrong role,
robed as an ill favored caricature.

I'm shedding your skin
into something reptilian and sleek.
Dropping the masks,
I still won't wear pink

Friendship is War

I loved a Botticelli artist,
Medici nosed and sewer deep.
You took him.

Cutting cheekbones
your heavy arsenal.
Victory was inevitable.

Scalps lined your shelves
from Joe Punk
to Evil Personified.

Friendship is war.

We were dolls to be broken
and dropped.

Stand on the pile,
your battle plans to self esteem.

Shredded

I judged your profile,
forgetting Lord Byron was a bastard.

You were a garret in Paris,
a moth in the darkness.

I brought my black bag,
brimming with legs and breasts.
I couldn't cure you.
The infection was too ingrained.

Your pretty words
turned my head 360.
Your hook was barbed.
I swallowed.

The fight was pitiful.
You cut the line,

leaving me numb,
among the splatter,
my faith torn,
my feet shredded,
your cock broken.

Winged Alice and the Keyblade of Doom

Your cigarette blown words
lodge firmly in my back.

Losing a toe or three 
keeps me swaying on the beam.

My fluted mouth stiffens.
I drop more than my shirt 
in the parading maze of dazed revelers
sweating in the Carnival swelter.

Twinned but not;
best friend for never.
Dissected from skin to bone.
The stripes on my pants are all wrong.

The paper mache grizzly,
the Army green ginger,
neither fits.
Your German blonde elevates you
to the balcony scene.

Keeping my mask carefully blank,
I fall into beta position.

In the garbage piled streets,
no one wants to vomit alone.

Lord Jaune Dapper and his Magickal Space Unicorn

Some days when I am feeling down and it seems like nothing will go my way ever again, I like to think about Lord Jaune Dapper and remember that he didn't always have such a fantastic sense of style; he didn't always journey with the magnificent beast that currently stands at his side.

Sometimes people cannot see the awesomeness inside themselves.  Lord Jaune Dapper didn't always realize how special he was.

He dressed in dark, somber colors.  He lingered despondently in the shadows, but then, he met the Magickal Space Unicorn.  

The Magickal Space Unicorn helped Lord Jaune to realize his own inner awesomeness.  

Lord Jaune no longer wanted to hide.  He wanted to flaunt his spectacular style and shine.

Huzzah, Lord Jaune Dapper.  Huzzah!

That is how I feel about my art.  

I refuse to slink about the internet, only posting my artwork to a few.  

I want to share it with the world!

The Gator Cycle

Amazing how a single word can send your mind spinning down strange avenues...

Pink...pink..PINK...pink....

I couldn't help but think of the very pink house that I saw a few weeks ago near the edge of the French Quarter.  The one thought I had upon raising the camera was that I didn't know if I had ever seen a house so very pink.

The rest just fell into place.  I've always loved the Victorian ventricle horses and I had just tinkered with a gator so marrying the two into one simply made sense.  

Ride, little girl, ride!  

To the ends of your imagination and beyond!

Some Doors are Better Left Shut

I finished another piece in my French Quarter character series.

Some doors are better left shut!

It was fun to make use of two different photographic series: the ones I took just a few weeks ago in the French Quarter and an image I took a few weeks before that during a tour I took of Lafayette Cemetery with my sister.

I gave the young Civil War era miss one of my folk art Voodoo Goblins to carry and I tucked my recurring character, the Quarter Cat, half in and half out of the door.

The Quarter Cat likes to make an appearance when our world blends briefly with another, something darker, something a little otherworldly

Hopefully, our young miss will chose not to cross the threshold into the darker world.  I cannot think that is a world that she is quite ready for!

I love the theory that we are living in an almost endless universe, with thousands and thousands of similar universes stacked one against another.  Perhaps a door opens between our universe and one of the many others.  Sort of makes everyday life a little more exciting.

Quarter Gator Girl

Missing New Orleans, as I have been of late, I thought it would be fun to work on a series on the French Quarter, making use of some of the 538 pictures I took there a few weeks ago on my birthday outing.  (I turned 39, again, so it was a very special one!)

One of the things that the French Quarter is known for is its eccentric denizens, the quirky characters that live and work there.

Seemed like the perfect subject for a new series!  (don't worry, I am still planning on continuing with my Side Show series as well as the much longer Tarot card series)

Of course, fact is stranger than artistic fiction so I've no doubt that my imaginary cast of characters is no where near as charming or odd as the real residents, but, I think, they are still rather a fun lot!

Gather Ye Rosebuds

I've been on a bit of a photography spree of late.  As a birthday treat, I spent a day in the French Quarter photographing all the things.  I really wanted to capture a lot of the amazing residential portion of the French Quarter, but as temperatures inched up toward 90, I definitely started to lose my drive.

I agreed to meet a friend at the St Roch Market for lunch so it seemed like a perfect time for a break.  Walking toward Elysian Fields and beyond, I realized where I really should have been taking photos all day.  The houses are fantastic.  The colors are brilliant and the cottages are classic New Orleans.

I will definitely have to head back to New Orleans for another day of photography.  Hopefully, another day when I am less likely to melt.  

I spent a few hours in the Garden District a few week back.  The houses there are overwhelmingly elegant and grand.  I find I prefer the more modest shotgun cottage in all their gaudy Creole glory.

With my new embarrassingly large largess of photographs, I thought it would be fun to play with some more mixing.  

My initial thought was to take the idea of Gathering Ye Rosebuds to the nth degree and make my young girls actual rosebuds, but as the image evolved, I decided to leave my young misses with their lovely faces intact.

I tinkered with the color scheme from bright to dark.  I even tried a version without any young ladies but finally settled on my favorite.

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

French Quarter Black bird- TAW challenge

One of the things I love about the natural world is the wide variety 

of animal life at different locales around the world.

Here is a fabulous example of a black bird from the region of southern Louisiana

pictured in front of her natural habitat in the French Quarter.

Laissez bon temps roulez, little birdie!

Mirror Image - 3Muse Challenge

This weeks challenge from Three Muses is Mirror.

I started with a photo from the French Quarter and added a darling little Victorian girl.

Good versus evil?

Or is it just a case of multi universes?

Is she made of gummy bears in one?

But, in none of them, I assure you, is she dancing....