Jason’s Tile

This summer, my son and his husband, Jason, went to Portugal to look around. One of the pictures Jason sent back was this lovely, Old World tile. I was so intrigued by it, I decided to duplicate it. Because I wanted to learn something about two-block technique that’s the way I set this experiment up. So far I have a run of 20 of these “tiles” but I’ve left the edition open to make different presentations and perhaps different colors in the future. Watch this space for assemblage pieces.

As seen here it is just under 4″ x 4″ (like real tiles). Printed in water-based inks, mounted on card stock.

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I’m Watching Late Night TV

I’m watching TV sell goodies to me.
I can still buy CDs.
I can buy DVDs
Of the old BeeGees.
Rendered now in full 3-D.

I can cure ED.
Buy gas from BP,
Get shoes orthopedy
And Beefy BVDs.

I’m watching TV sell goodies to me.
I can watch three monkeys
Fling mealy feces.
I can buy a green machine
that makes trees leafy.
I can fly to Fiji.
I can feed the needy.
I can take a GED by the light of GE.
I can watch I dream of Genie.
I can meet ET.
I can see the big ol’ boobies
Of a witch named Phoebe.

I’m watching TV sell goodies to me.
I can buy a PC.
I can take PE.
I can get PG.
I can go PP.

I can get touchy feely.
I can beat the heebie jeebies.
I can eat more kiwis
Than a dog named Queenie.

I can watch a man fish in a lake that’s reedy
Or fix his lawn that’s really, really weedy.
I can watch the PD
Storm a hotel seedy,
Bust a whore with VD
And symptoms of TB.
I can watch a guy who’s creepy
Just before he gets the DTs.

I’m watching TV sell goodies to me.
I can watch some plumber TCB
With some plastic pipes of PVC
Fix a toilet that’s leaky,
Make it flush away the TP,
And once again, take away the PP.

I can Watch the QB
score the winning TD.
I can watch an old movie
‘bout truckers on the CB.

I can watch dinosaurs all scaly and creepy
Back about a million years BC
Act like members of the GOP
In the halls of congress in today’s DC.
They both were greedy
And they both ate freely
Of the eggs and babies of other little meaties,
But the big ones ate the little creepies
And were eaten in turn by the bigger blue meanies.

And I watch all this till my brain gets leaky
Then my real world life begins to look pretty freaky.
So I’m watching TV sell goodies to me,
And I know it’s time to quit the habit of TV,
But it really isn’t all that GD easy.

I can still buy CDs.
I can buy DVDs
Of the old BeeGees.
Rendered now in full 3-D.
I can buy a PC.
I can take PE.
I can get PG.
I can go PP.
I’m watching TV sell goodies to me.

[245]

If I had better lungs, this would be 30 seconds shorter.

I’m Tired of Living in a Country Song

Let me make it clear: this is not tale of my life today. It was a time in my marriage that was much different from now. But I can’t deny it was a real time. Also NOTE, regular text is spoken, italic text is sung.


I’m tired of living in a country song
But here I am,
Sitting in my truck,
Looking down an endless highway
With less than a quarter tank of three dollar gas.

I’m tired of living a country song
So, I’ll take the truck and drive along.
I’ll let the dog ride shotgun next to me.

But any old road that I choose now,
Well, that’s a road you won’t go down.
So, we’re headed in different ways, it’s plain to see.

The only thing I know for sure
Is you don’t want me around no more
And I’m staring down a highway I can’t drive.

I’m sick and tired of mad and sad.
I’m looking hard for a little glad,
And we’re layin’ down this song in concert live.


The biggest question we have right now
Is who gets custody of the last dog,
And if I have time to get my teeth fixed
Before the insurance runs out.

Highway moves from town to town.
But staying here just brings me down.
I just can’t be the me I wanna be.

I know you know I’m not the man
You tried to make when we began,
And I can’t be the me you wanna see.


So maybe I’ll grab the dog and drive away
Drink some beer and
Learn to play the slide guitar.
Wish you luck
And catch your act in Wichita.

All duets will end one day
And each of us is less, they say,
Than half of what we were when we were one.

But less than half is more by far
Than all of any falling star
That burns completely out before it’s done.

I’m tired of living a country song
So, I’ll take the truck and drive along.
I’ll let the dog ride shotgun next to me.

But any old road that I choose now,
Well, that’s a road you won’t go down.
So, we’re headed in different ways, it’s plain to see.

[244]

I do not claim to be a fine singer!

Set the Nails Deep and Hard-1955

My father traded his life’s plan for a Purple Heart in Korea.

Instead, he made aluminum extrusions in a plant that was as loud as any combat.
He cut aluminum billets and fed the extrusion machines:
Loading them into the ram,
Firing them in the furnace
To something just short of 1220 degrees,
Sawing off the butts,
Attaching a new billet,
Heating,
Pressing,
Sawing,
Loading.

During smoke breaks,
Squatting against a wall
Like a Korean farmer,
He flicked ashes in his pant cuffs–
A habit he picked up in the war
to help hide his presence from the enemy.

When he was a saw-man,
His cuffs were full of aluminum shavings and ash.
He never emptied them.
Even at 5, I knew that made Mom mad;
He could not remember his cuffs full of irritation until too late.
He turned them out in the kitchen
And swept them into a dustpan with a small whiskbroom.
But even a single stray burr could hide
Beneath the lip of the heat register for days,
Guarding against glinting in the darkness,
And bite bare feet on the way to breakfast.

When he wasn’t a “feeder,” he was a “puller” on the other end,
Keeping extrusions from kinking
While they were shit out of the machine die muzzle,
Headed for the stretcher and the hardening tables,
Cutting them to length.
He came home enfogged in a layer of invisible oil
Mixed with sweat from the heat of the furnace;
He smelled sour from feet away.
His black hair,
Cut in a military flattop every other Saturday,
Gleamed greasy.
Even his breath smelled oily
Every day…except Sunday.
By the time he had bathed and washed his hair
And changed clothes twice,
The smell of extruding oil had faded.
On Sundays Dad smelled right: cigarette smoke and beer.
That’s how a blue collar Dad smelled in the Eisenhower era.

On Sundays Dad often produced a half-pound sack
Of one inch roofing nails
And my hammer.
In our small backyard kneeled a long-dead tree stump.
It had been there far longer than I.
Dad wanted me to practice driving nails into it.
By the time we left that house in 1957,
That stump was entirely galvanized—
Silver nail heads
Overlapping like fish scales—
Impervious to rot.

He had taught me how to hold the nail with my left hand,
Tap-start it with the quick hammer in my right
And to drive it
With the last strike to set the nail deep and hard.
To this day, I enjoy no job more than driving nails
And setting the nail with that last strike, just so!
I own three different nailing guns,
But when the job calls for a hammer, I know the special finality:
“Tap,” “bang, bang, bang,” “BANG!”
In the way of securing this to that and making a thing.

Dad often sat on that dead, silver stump to smoke
After I had been put to bed.
I saw him there at night,
Or rather I sometimes saw the hot orange spark,
And if it was a warm night,
I was soothed by tobacco smoke
Blowing in through the one small window.

Other times, if the wind was blowing too hard,
Or the weather was poor,
He cupped the cigarette to shelter it,
And to guard the telltale glow from the enemy.
He smoked them unfiltered, far too short
Until the pads of his middle finger and thumb
And his too-long fingernails
Were stained brown.
He knew.
He called them coffin nails.

In the end, I didn’t make my father’s coffin,
Although I would have found it an honorable labor:
Sawing and planning,
Joining and setting screws.
Somewhere I would have found a way to use some nails–
Maybe roofing nails for a simple pattern on the lid.
A fish-scale, perhaps.
Tap, bang, bang, bang…BANG!
He chose cremation, returned to the furnace,
Much hotter even than for extruding aluminum billets.

[243]

Donielle’s New Hat

This is the most complex print I have attempted to date. It is called “Donielle’s New Hat.” There was never really any other title possible. Donielle is a friend and she gave me permission about a year ago to do this rendition of her photo. I had to wait while my skills grew into the endeavor.

It is a reduction linocut of 6 layers with the hand-painted earrings in a 7th color printed on vellum and mounted on backing paper of an 8th color. I am satisfied with it despite some technical issues.

It is a 4.5″ x 8.5″ print mounted on 8.5″ x 11″ paper and backing framed in a 9″ x 13″ frame. This is 1 of 13 in the world.

[242]

BUG 1

This is from a photo I saw somewhere. I’m not trying to steal anything. But it is dedicated to Mr. and Mrs. Thompson (you know who you are). The traditional VW with “birth control” seats, was an icon of the 60s among a certain class of drivers. This image tries to evoke the spirit of that era. No print is perfect and the four layers of this print each created a different challenge. BUG 1 is a lino cut 4-layer print of 6.5″ x 6″ on paper. Limited edition of 12.

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