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Image and Poem by Sandshoe.
Wise Monkey-Do and Ducky waited
perched behind the shed’s dank, lush
surround of fallen vines, tangled
leaves and branches, a massed crush
of red wildflowers falling, roiling
off the tin roof of the gazebo,
bold Gold Sun’s rim glowing, dawning
on New Day’s rise. Their souls akimbo,
the friends looked out together
waiting for Gold Sun’s full shine, warm
in their new morning’s warm-sweet air,
their warm friendship as warm –
as sweet. Strange! Dark! Pea-green sea!
As still as only still can be!
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Love the picture, ‘shoe… Full of vibrant contrasting colours and interesting textures; and I like the poem too… in fact this is the third time I’ve read it, and I’ve liked it a little more each time. Very… ‘atmospheric’…
🙂
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Wowwwwwww! That is v nice asty you like both even. Yes, it’s kind of sweet that poem.
Strange how these ideas come into our imaginations and next thing something like ‘Monkey and Ducky’ spring into being with their own integral “life”…the creation just “is”…somehow is no longer ‘ours’. But thank you, again. They are mine and it matters a great deal to me you have spent the time when you are so busy plus enjoyed.
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yo
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Y’ good for a yo and I love you for it Hung.
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The backyard of a Waiheke Island address my daughter and her infant son lived in in 1990 was a morass of wonderful grass and weeds … there was a 44-gallon drum/incinerator out of which was growing an entire uprising of a field of lucious green blades of tall grass and the sea was visible at a distance. The allotment was large and neighbours were invisible, the yard was a tumble of rambler weeds and scrambler vines to the door of its cottage and the surround of the incinerator… it was a Van Gogh of mysterious shades of colour that came and went on its foliage and aspect as the days revolved.
The day I arrived, I was entranced to find the cottage through the grassy entrance from the road I walked from, having arrived finally by bus from the ferry and I pushed at its wooden door when nobody replied. A note told me my daughter was at the shops and I was to make myself at home.
It had been on my mind to draw some pictures to celebrate my visit to my girl and her little son, but least had I expected this place so humble, so wildly romantic in its natural state…
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I conceived in the course of that afternoon the characters and the first of these pictures I drew around this time, although fitted the image originally into the bones of another story I had drawn pictures of to transport with me as a diary…my pictures are mostly codes to memory. By the time my daughter came from the shops, windblown through the door with one of those poignant smiles, its youthful gaiety and her blue wind jacket with its inner tartan bright against her smiling face, her son on her hip, I had finished this picture.
Ten years later, I set the original illustration in front of me to write ‘Monkey-Do and Ducky’ to present it to a group.. to ultimate end I hoped of demonstrating how to begin a poem using a starting point of a form, but to allow the imagination to have its way if a writer is fired by an idea…the beginning of Monkey-Do and Ducky pretty well fired as I began to write a 14-line sonnet of the rhyme pattern ABAB CDCD EFEF GG based on an iambic pentameter,
which metre lapses in places, but can be invigorated by a stretch of imagination and an actor’s ability… it allows a dramatic leeway of interpretation, but unavoidably of ‘stillness’. It is a simple dramatic idea to introduce this repetition of words that are not usually juxtaposed. Thank you Warrigal and all those who have found in this something to like. I am glad to have provided some pause.
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“….. fecund”
I just wanted to say fecund. That’s what those first few lines elicit, the notion of fecundity, the fruitful generation of possibility .
Still working on it Pumps.
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Pumps! Here I am composing a piece to you and I … hahahahaha … you give me the big laugh today, Warrigal. Pumps!
I was just about to reveal the aptness of everybody’s comments by addressing you, yes Wazzle, to tell you the circumstance in which this piccy came to life, now I have to go and laugh for a bit… hahahaha… Pumps!*&%$gorgeous … hahaha 🙂
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I have studied the picture and read the poem a few more times, and, I sense happiness; happiness of a warm summer morning, beautiful , cheerful colours making you feel good about life; flowers, a good friend…that’s all one needs 🙂
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H, you tipped it. A beautiful experience with my daughter and grandson at her place. We are blessed indeed Helvi to experience our joys when they arrive thus. Thank you.
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Ok I’ll assay, 1. The stillness of the moment
2. the saffron effulgence of the dawning
3. The renewal of friendships
4. The unknown future, a still place in the gyre of a turning life.
That opening line also has me singing “Wild women do and they don’t regret it…”
Wild women do
And they don’t regret it.
Wooh!
You tell me you want a woman who’s
As simple as a flower.
Well if you want me to act like that,
You’d better pay me by the hour.
Don’t want to travel in the danger zone
Take another number
Don’t want a lover who can hold her own
Baby step aside if you don’t want to ride
Because
Wild women do
And they don’t regret it
Wild women show
What they’re goin’ through
Wild women do
What you think they’ll never
What you only dream about
Wild women do.
You think that love is a vision of
A princess in a picture
Well let me tell you something, little boy
You wouldn’t know love if it hit ya
Scared of someone who is off the wall
Kickin’ and a screamin’
Don’t you want a lover who can do it all?
Listen to me Jack
I ain’t holdin’ back
Cos
Wild women do
And they don’t regret it
Wild women show
What they’re goin’ through
Wild women do
What you think they’ll never
What you only dream about
Wild women do.
Come on and wild with me baby.
Everybody come on,
Everybody get wild.
Wild women do
And they don’t regret it
Wild women show
What they’re goin’ through
Wild women do
What you think they’ll never
What you only dream about
Wild women do.
(to fade)
Come on, its time to strut your stuff ladies. Hands on hips and get outta that kitchen, tell, the old man that wild women do and they don’t regret it.
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…wild women in the kitchen??? Well, maybe cooking, but definitely not washing up or cleaning pots….
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Helvi, Sister, well detected. Lucky you were alert. I didn’t notice. I was blinded by the lyrics and the vid. … and the image Warrigal created that he was singing the song. That’s some lovely image. 🙂
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Firstly, much ado about nothing came to mind on sighting your title SS. Then I came to souls akimbo, and wondered on it.
Legs akimbo doesn’t fit, I suppose.
But warm sweet air and warm friendships are good stuff, and hopefully follow you all the days of your life. Surely good things and mercy will follow you all the days of your life. Psalm 23
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The lyric quality of Psalm 23 has a rare beauty, Jayell. Its content transcends war, pestilence, lest we forget literal sacrificin’ and plaguein’, with suggestion of receipt of enough…rest, quiet, a revived soul, sound values, courage and so on…
To lead us not to temptation but to tranquility. Arcadia ( Ἀρκαδία) and how could there be war. We are obsessed with war whether for or against. We front for the news (war) and we chatter about violence on the sports fields. We allow guns. Our children play war games.
Thank you Jayel for reading Monkey-Do and Ducky. I very much appreciate these sweet words of yours.
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“We are obsessed with war whether for or against. We front for the news (war) and we chatter about violence on the sports fields. We allow guns. Our children play war games.”
It’s the whole nature of our hierarchical value system, ‘shoe; that’s what’s at the root of it; our whole system is inherently abusive…
I’ve always liked the 23rd psalm too…
😐
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I’ve settled into the “Shoe” way now, I think the trick is always to wait until you’ve really given the post time to seep in and sink to its own level.
Then and only then can anything worthwhile be offered in response.
At this time I can say I warm to the picture immediately but like H I’ll wait until I’ve inwardly digested the poem before I comment.
I love the vibrant colours but I have one question Pedipod: what is the media you’ve used? I’m guessing felt tip pen with maybe coloured pencils then the deft application of a wet brush to spread the felt tip ink. But I’m only guessing.
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Pedipod! ROTFLMAO! Love it! 🙂
Warrigal, thank you re your enquiry. Media is fine point black pen, pencil, felt tips, coloured pencils, and crayon. The effect you attributed might be a wet brush to spread the felt tip ink is achieved by variously dragging relevant coloured crayon on its side over selected areas to create a ‘polished’ appearance and catch reflected light. I have worked as a wood finisher and I was primarily interested to find a way to create that effect you mention … so made sure there was no dust or grit on the undersurface or on the crayon, concentrating the crayon first to gently drag fill in any area that looked bit rough, then dragging the crayon across the entire section… just mentioning too I bought a number of different brands of felt tips to use to blend, I bought short stumps of wax crayons from second hand shops or broke new ones.
It’s done on see-through A4 typing paper bought in a book of it on the cheap, but because it’s fine. It glows with a lamp behind it.
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Love the poem/psalm and painting. The three P’s in fact. Essential ingredients for a good life’s meal. I notice the monkey eyeing the letter-box. Is he expecting a banana?
Cheeky buggers . Some parts of the world they are trained to steal from tourists, escape into the forests where the owner sits in a banana chair calmly collecting cameras, jewelry, wallets, in return for which the monkey gets a couple of katjangs.
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Amazing as an artist who was a kid who never drew when another artist comments they recognise something in their paintings … no ‘is it an apple, is it a weasel’ but you recognise the monkey is eyeing a postbox! 🙂
This was originally drawn with a Chinese merchant silhouetted against the sun who, standing on the verandah of his home was looking out to see if his shipment of produce is appearing on the horizon; he is concerned about his investments. Monkey Do and Ducky are by contrast looking out for personal mail, that sort of thing and enjoying their friendship, the dawning of the day.
Gez I had never forgotten that someone in Cairns when I was there in the early 90s wanted to introduce monkeys into the palm trees on the Esplanade! 🙂
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Love the picture, Shoe, I’ll ‘digest’ the poem, and comment later 🙂
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Hey shoe. Have you thought of oil paints? Tricky, but luscious.
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Dr Win, it is only yesterday I was makin’ my mind up…said to me that when I get a space I will try oils. 🙂
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I hope you do shoe. I could imagine some Gaugin-lush paintings….don’t just do one or two though. Do a lot, in a short period of time. It’s important to get really stuck into it I think.
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I understand about working in rapid bursts, Lehan and I am happy to be reminded of the technique as I have not done any illustration for a while other than some graphic art. Lehan I am burning the candle at both ends at the moment with so much anxiety getting my moving organised, but I just mention I have some line drawings if you are interested I put one up some time. I will be happy to. I shelved the next Pig’s Psalm for a couple of days as these are hectic days with organising emptying my house and I just don’t have the contract yet. 🙂
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