Tag: illustration

The Woodcutter and The Hammer

original artwork

There’s a problem with me. I don’t know how to fix it. To draw is to survive. When it serves any other purpose, I turn into an ear at the door, scared, my calves tense, ready to flee in case they open the door. And I know very well that’s no way to live.

But the thing is…today’s problems go away tomorrow. It burns through the night like firewood that turns to ash by daybreak. This means I should finish drawing before daybreak – before my reason to draw turns to ash and I’m drawing not to get through the day but for other reasons that fail to stand up against questions that don’t even matter. Questions such as: What will they think? Won’t they think I’m weird? Isn’t it a bit too disturbing?

It really doesn’t matter! You know why? Because you’re still reading. Ha! And that’s all that matters at the end of the day. That you recognize enough human in me to say whatever you say: “different”, “weird”, “nutcase”.

I’d have loved to wait another day before putting out the artwork. But I’m still a fucked up coward who needs to hide behind the alarm that jolts me to action when I feel like I’m going to die. It is only in the shadow of my doom that I can speak what I mean. How…pathetic….interesting.

So all you get is something I’m not proud of. But that doesn’t matter either. Because you’re still reading. And once again…that is enough. For today.

Oh, also, the artwork is about a woodcutter (father figure in children’s stories, rescuer of people in the forest, an amphibian like Mowgli the Frog who lives both in the forest and in houses). It is what I aspire to be – like the children of Narnia whose cupboard opens into a forest. What I intend to do is conquer and return home of my own accord – to be the prince of the forest and yet give it all up for what we call “society”. How do I live in the forest during the day and come back home at night? How do I learn to dig deep into myself, find hidden treasures, and return with resolve to a place like the world we all share? ( for it is a very greedy world where gold kills people)

What I need is an axe. But I feel like I’ve taken up the hammer instead. And that is getting me nowhere. I am stuck.

What if they cook me?

original artwork

The entire house was open to me, laid bare and naked. Except for the kitchen. The kitchen was dangerous. It had gas cylinders, knives, and hot pans. Entering it during the day, when my parents were at work, was like entering a tomb. The dry sink, the shut cabinets and closed lids, the black iron of the stove like a fire-breathing dragon asleep after a hearty meal, it all seemed…dead. But it was a living death – more like sleep.

I would wander into the kitchen in the evenings and watch my mom run around the kitchen trying to make food for all of us. I had been there hours before and the tiles had stared back at me. The squares had heaved like the chest of a sleeping monster. And here she was, moving, unaware of it quiet and submissive under her swift feet.

I would look on, from the threshold. My entry into this world of fire and sweat was only possible if she acknowledged me – only if I had the right things to say, the right things to ask. The kitchen is off-limits. To distract her would be criminal, to interact disastrous. My father would come and leave. He did not need her to be a part of this space that breathed like a boxer after 10 rounds. He was an adult.

Walking in, proceeding with caution, my arms and legs telling her that I knew that I must enter this space with great care, I was like Lazarus coming out of the tomb wrapped in cloth – slow, scared, and bound at the mouth of a tomb. I was screaming to be reborn, to become what my parents were. I ask her something in my best voice, I put my choice warrior to task. I find the rhythm of the kitchen in the sound of the metal hitting the cast iron pan. My words fit right into the spaces. They cut through the mix the way incisors cut into cheese and cake.

But she ignores me

In that moment, I am in the void. Lost, in a space where I do not belong. The chimney is old, struggling to swallow the heat. The fires blaze and I bake next to the stove. I can’t scream. I become lifeless like vegetables before they are washed. I become meat prepped for the grill. I become food.

What if I can’t leave the kitchen? What if the door is shut?

What if I can’t run away like I always do?

Am I to bake in this heat?

I need to grow. Faster.

I need to be able to go in and out as I please.

Panicking, I grab an apron. I extend my limbs, stretch out the straps and cry out – “I am not a child. Please don’t cook me”

Hour(izon)glass

Original artwork

Sucked into the narrow middle at the last hour, the horizon where we will meet, surrounded by death, with one foot in the door to infinity. The sand will fall through into dead space and if we join hands and hold them out into the void, the dirt of our grave will graze our pale skin. There, you will hand me the pen and I will write on the door, frantically scribble the only things that matter, poems for those who come after, who dare to see death within the face. Creak, creak goes the hinge, grace our shoes with crusted paint that falls but never fell. There is no time at the door to infinity, in the middle of the glass that contains the hour.

original artwork

If you want to know more about what I’m trying to say, read this post: https://thefourthdimensionoflife.wordpress.com/2021/09/05/things-are-falling-apart/

A Fire

Original Artwork

There is a fire in my heart.

But it will not spread.

It is a low flame gathering at the base,

burning the roof of my heart to a crisp.

The life of my flesh, the only river that returns,

burnt into the ceiling, like meat forgotten on the grill.

But in this the pulse remains,

That when I die and you think my soul at peace,

You’ll reach into me with blunt knives you bought for cheap

And find inside a piece of me

burning over a fire that won’t recede