A Good Frame of Mind: Featured Artist Mark Friedman

A Good Frame of Mind: Featured Artist Mark Friedman

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Kisses

and then you brought me


a basket of warm kisses


through long years of snow

The Price You Pay

Rubies sapphire diamonds and gold

Had that money, all the money my hands could hold.

Had a nice place, such a fine life, flood stole it away.

Ain't nothing mine now, ain't nothing left, but hell to pay.

Baby cried, sweet mama screamed when the black water came.

"Oh Lord," I prayed, wash me clean, just don't wash them away.

It's hard to live, so hard to give, even harder to breathe,

When you've lost all you love, everything you need.

All dem riches that shine today

Sure ain't worth the price you pay.

Your brightest dream is sure to fade

The more you hold on the more it slip away.

Now she's gone, it's so hard to start over again.

I don't know why mean old blues claims to be my friend.

I got a song deep in my heart, I still need to sing.

It’s all that stops the flood of tears when memories come again.

It's all changed all brand new now I'm back to stay.

All I owned, it owned me, just wasted my day.

Them that got, they still got, they got everything.

Us without, all we got is what the morning bring.

All dem riches that shine today

Sure ain't worth the price you pay.

Your brightest dream is sure to fade

The more you hold on the more it slip away.

Rubies sapphire diamonds and gold

Take that money, it's just money, you'll never take my soul.

Next time I build, I'll build my house of heart and stone.

I'll make my home /atop the hill, rest my tired bones.

All dem riches that shine today

Sure ain't worth the price you pay.

Your brightest dream is sure to fade

The more you hold on the more it slip away.

I Miss You

(January 3, 2011)

It is the month of ravens, the season

of liquid light.  It has been a long year

for golden tigers, and I cannot bear

to be without you for another day.

My tracks freeze in their place, there is no more

getting away.  Even my shadow is

brittle.  In the great spruce behind our house,

three ravens squeak rusty nails out of iced

bark with their cawing, change positions as

they ladder up branch by branch, but the one,

I think female, is first to find the top.

Yesterday, after the snow came, the sun,

behind a wispy smudge of cloud, shimmered

dreamy and moonlike, and a lone eagle

wove its way across the steel wool sky like

the shuttle of a loom.  It is the month

of coal, of burning cold.  The charred raven

brings its gift of fire to all those who

freeze.  The crystal sunlight turns into ash.

I am left to ask, “What brings you to me

in the night?  Will the knit of need and knot

of time hold only when arms and legs are

woven tight?”  My fabric frays without you.

Here in the slant burn of the winter sun,

in the black and gray grit of frozen thaw,

I climb the stark tree of mind, limb by limb,

into the murky sky.  Each day away

from you, I ache in the hollow of my bones.

___________________________________

See the vidoe version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0odVZQSWwgM

My Will Is Gone

The stars are melting / I’m a going home (2x)
The wind is moaning / don’t wanna be alone


Come on baby / be my port in the storm (2x)
Won’t you love me / while my will is gone


I need your fire / to light up this hole (2x)
I need your loving / to fill up my soul


You love to tease me / but you sure can please (2x)
Come on baby / put my mind at ease


Say you love me / it won’t last too long (2x)
I’d say I’m sorry / but I've done no wrong


Come on baby / help me ride this storm (2x)
Won’t you love me / while my will is gone


My will is gone

The Solstice Eclipse

This poem needs to be viewed as a pdf.  Please click here.

"The Solstice Eclipse" is a "2D" (or 2 directional poem).

It was composed to be read both vertically (down each column) and horizontally (across each row).

Living Well

to live well beyond


your means, find wealth in the breath


that fills you with light

Amber

I found the poet’s flashlight
shining dark as honey through
the mouth of a dream,
welding everything together,
filling the mind with sweetness,
oozing over edges like tree sap.


In the cave of our love
by the touch of your skin
I find my way, I flicker
and flare in the warmth
of your arms, then all is gone
in a sputter of breath.


When the day fades, how precious are
these luminous moments together.
The poem slows it all down. Under
its thick, sticky baptism of amber,
the radiance of ebony keeps us
golden through the silky night.

Another

to fall in love with
each breath sweeter than the last,
sigh like flowers when
bees wiggle in, that’s one thing,
to live it, is another

The Third Full Moon in a Season of Four

The gathering storm eats
this true blue moon,
a dry wafer, soft hazy red
against the tin horizon.

It slips like a shining quarter
into a jukebox of cloud,
lingers gleaming in the dark coin slot
while the sad song plays.

We walk on bundled and
stiff like scarecrows into
the blustery November dusk.
We came to watch the full moon rise,

but what seems more pertinent now
is how this diaphanous disk
of sanguine floats pale
and quiet as milkweed seed

on the edge of the wind
and then is gone. There is
something rare yet relevant
in the way it disappears top first

into ambiguous lips of gray,
like the way you pull me
into your love from whatever
sorry spin my mind puts me in.

We tread our rambling path
calling owl and raven,
dizzy from the hordes
of squawking geese

hurtling above our heads.
The leaves crisp from their fall
crackle under our feet.
We have become deeply familiar

with how the rippled lake
smooths itself into evening,
how the shadowed land stretches and
yawns as the sleep of winter nears.

We wonder if the glowing gold eyes
of coyote will follow us into the dark.
There is something amazing,
something intimate and perhaps enduring

in how our footprints freeze in mud.
We have been this way a hundred times
through blistering summer heat and sudden
spring rains. Nothing ever remains,

yet this sunken moment
of our meandering, frosted in
the last blood of sunset,
glimmers as night closes in.

Rerun

I watch myself


(someone has to)


an endless rerun


of a canceled sitcom.


(There is nothing better on.)


With each episode the laugh track builds,


until snickers echo guffaw.


I long for the theme music,


the predictable end, a chance to begin


again. I have seen it all before.


I want a commercial to tell me


what I need to be happy.






Everything I say is misunderstood,


as if I am talking in igpay atinlay.


If someone bothers to reply,


it’s like white noise, radio static,


the high buzz of the test pattern,


punctuated by screeching


brakes, the breaking of glass.


On my birthday, I go off


by myself, howl through


the empty night until


there is nothing left


but a mournful wail.






Yesterday was not like this,


it was quiet and made


of silly putty. The sun


was a lemony lollipop.


Cars jostled joyfully along


like bright balloons,


bouncing refugees


from the happy party,


and your face, pressed


warmly against mine,


picked up the colors


of my cartoon.

The Moon

- autumnal musings on the Four Mile Canyon Fire, 2010




The moon is the moon


whether pale as pumpkin seed


or smoke red. The moon swells,


a plum, it ripens blushing


with sunset or dark as a bruise.






Why bemoan what changes, what spins


the stars into unending darkness? Only what passes


endures, what we hold will be lost.


Flames on wind shriek through trees,


ashes all we possess, and still we go on.


 
 

I Came Here

in a ninth century
sports car formerly
owned by Ivar the Boneless.


It runs on ice water
and has a Viking horn
hood ornament.


I drove through words,
my tires hissing words
over hills of words.


The ribbon of asphalt
snapped me to you
like a whip.


I flew over mountains in a toy
airplane losing my hair
on the bald peaks,


it's rubber band engine
whirring like cicadas after
a twelve year nap,


revved up and hungry,
a spinning dervish
dizzy for your love.


I climbed without fear
the hollow blue of loneliness
into inner space.


My mind sucked
into a vacuum, my eyes
smoldering like falling stars.


I put my breath
behind me
to move on.


I rode the Titanic through
iceberg after iceberg
each the size of a hundred


Manhattans to find you.
I stayed mostly underwater,
held my breath for centuries,


floated face down
cold as a splintered reed
in the icy heart


of a saxophone.
Now I open like fog
in the sunlight,


with your hand
warm on my shoulder
I turn to meet your lips.


Each day all is new.
The ancient sax
howls outside my sun


splashed window
thick and golden as honey,
brings me to hear again.

The Kill, an experimental poetry video, by M. D. Friedman

Here's my new video poem.  Please let me know what you think.
A full screen preview is availble at www.mdfriedman.com.

The Phantom Gallery

This poem needs to be viewed as a pdf.  Please click here.

"The Phantom Gallery" is a "2D" (or 2 directional poem) was written in repsonse to the 90 Minute Art Show at the Yellow Pines Reading Series in Boulder on September 15, 2010.

It was composed to be read both vertically (down each column) and horizontally (across each row). It is difficult to get a full appreciation for the work by looking at it on a page. Please click to listen to the audio version.  (The vertical voice is M. D. Friedman and the horizonal voice is Mariamne Engle Friedman.)

Hushed

- in response to Bea Bulter's watercolor painting, Untitled




the sputtering cyclone of


the golden ghost of hope


curls like the smoking promise


around a glowing womb


rubs the nerve raw


opens to the dawning


shadowed forge of life


a lens of black flame


focuses the whirling circle of pain


into a screaming vortex of mirror shard


the lightening claw


of dreamed desire


hushed in misted silence


 

The Weaving of Two

- in response to the fiber art pieces of Jill Powers, A Blaze with Light & Red Essence






a blaze of red fiber


a broom scraping sky


skirted with leaf and pale scale


the top chopped teepee


its sap swells sweetly into bone


binds together feather and spore


shapes a basket crowned with stubble


the sunset scorches


the bird stitched night


drills my seed into white hot steel


 

On Works by Helen Brader

Ancient Words

nothing to say
nothing more to see
the throbbing emptiness
of molding words
the chapel of a broken soul
darkness squeaking with light




Opening

begging to begin again
sucked through the graying door
the smoldering storm of it
pierces the muscled grain of stick
deep within its core
reaching into ragged root
dank with musky lust
the twisted branch
seared to its bright quick
draws me through my shadow
sews me into the skin of earth
a heart embroidered with peace

Red Motion

- in response to Mark Jorden's photograph of the same name




blurred into vivid line


the stainless pipe


caves in on itself


falls into the tired vase


sheds its casing like a cracked cricket

Red Alert

- in response to Wendy Rochman's political word art sculpture Alert




alert


Bush's mind


is missing a few pieces


the thorny stem


is missing its rose


blood gurgles out thick as oil


in the name of


Republican fraud

autumn blue

staring up into


porcelain sky glazed deep blue


fickle fall breaks through


 

Milk the Moon

The way we go is cold and long.


It’s far too far to right the wrong.


The curves are steep, but the shoulder’s strong,


You’ll never catch us …………..without a song.






The dreams we bleed have slipped from sane.


The hearts we hold are full of pain.


Still no reason for a sad refrain,


We can melt the stars………free our brain.






The last one left to write is screaming,


the demons there to fight.


When liquid light is a streaming,


Just reach into the sky…and milk the moon.






All will be there all too soon,


Our heads spun open, cracked with dawn,


Our bodies all disarmed,


Swinging true to form ……….we punch the sun.






We’ll run this road until we’re gone.


Y’know feeling good can’t be wrong.


Our tears are warm and hearts are strong,


You’ll never catch us …………..without a song.






The last one left to write is screaming,


the demons there to fight.


When liquid light is a streaming,


Just reach into the sky…and milk the moon.