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I hope you enjoy the updates to my art and life as presented in this blog. IF you don't like the political stuff and don't want to receive future blogs just say so, no hard feelings. So far, only five have taken me up on the offer. With that in mind, remember: BELOW THE FOLD is where (most) of the controversial stuff is placed. Sometimes stuff is a hybrid, say humor and political. Nevertheless, I do this blog for me, it clears my mind and then I do it to share stuff I think is interesting, fun, needed to be considered, etc. I like, also, the feedback I receive, either on a specific article or the concept in general. Right now there are about 70 of you who receive this directly. Claude

ART:

Recent thoughts…bear with me

A happiness you can’t find alone

But what am I supposed to do?

Sitting bedside

Holding that little hand

Quiet breaths, calm

Just us

A happiness you won’t find alone

Time so fast

Can’t stop the clock hands

Can’t go backwards

I’m supposed to do what?

Say to whom

All the days, but not enough

Wanting eternity

Even in sickness, not health

No words are said

I hear the silence

Our hands are quiet

But not still

Her skin is real

Her grip almost gone

I have her

Her hand is steady

Is this what I’m supposed to do?

I don’t want to be alone

I’ll never be happy, but wait

With her memory I’ll never be alone

And then

One day.

©️

She said she’d save me a seat.

“Where are you?”

A desperate plea -no, scream!

I’m ready to join her to take my place.

But, like a crowded market or bazar

I won’t be able to find her.

Too much noise and dust, animals and laughter.

Sitters, runners, carts and carriages.

Smoke with the glint of sunlight.

Running children, dogs bark.

Sellers selling

Mayhem and…

Well, I’ll never find her.

Which street, on what block?

Whose storefront or tent?

Officials in creaky cars crawling across the square

near sidebars of dealing and stealing.

Animals everywhere.

No one notices.

Help me find her.

“No, I have no currency”

It’s been hours.

Birds screeching.

I’m lost, careening

toward mayhem.

Can’t hear her or see her in the chaos.

This can’t be heaven.

I’m lost.

©️

Still optimistic…

She grabbed my elbow and walked with me

Two hands on my left arm

Stride-for-stride

Passing Bar Tulia

For Florida a brisk night

Lingering sunset

Looking west

Palm tree silhouette

I smile …she smiles back

Stride-for-stride

It’s no heart attack

Just our evening ride

We exist

They all stare

And ask

Who are they?

It happens every where

Every night we’re

Stride-for-stride

©️

From my CHRISTMAS cruise…

Other’s:

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Commentary from Catholic Thing:

Bernini’s works stand out as centerpieces in every room in which they are found. David, Apollo and Daphne, The Rape of Proserpine, each comes alive as you walk around it, defying belief that they are made of stone.

One that is perhaps less dramatic, but nevertheless awe-inspiring (especially as he completed it at twenty years old), is his Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius. The image captures the moment in the Aeneid when the three figures escape from Troy to make their way to Italy, where they will eventually become the heroic progenitors of Romulus, Remus, and the Roman people.

Aeneas bears his father Anchises on his shoulder, Anchises carries a vessel with the ashes of their ancestors and figures of their household gods, and behind follows Aeneas’ son Ascanius carrying the eternal flame of Troy. Three generations, all carved from a single block of stone, united as an image of past, present, and future.

What jumps out immediately is the weight of Aeneas’ father, which bears down on him as he seeks to escape. The burden of the old man, whose skin appears, even in stone, to hang loosely over atrophied muscles, shows itself in Aeneas’ bent posture and taut muscles. He must carry his father, who in his piety keeps his gods and ancestors close at hand, while also protecting and leading his son.

The image is all the more striking, though, as it is one that can speak so powerfully to our own times, as we too are struggling under the weight of our past.

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This could be in the READING section…