For most of my formative years, I only knew the whole garden called Philadelphia by one single flower: the block of Arch Street between 10th and 11th. This was the location of the Trocadero theater, iconic Philly punk venue, and a sacred landmark in the little part of forever that I’ve tended.
“This is the sword of the Order. It has no patience for petty violence, no appetite for blood and flesh. The sword‘s purpose is to cut through oppression, to cleave the chains of the mind.”
“They told me I could come out when the sky turned red and the sun turned into the moon. Finally, I can move, I can open my eyes, and I can cross the threshold.”
We fight different demons
We carry the light differently
Different tools in our belts
”Still crossing this bridge,” you think. But where do you think you’re going? And where, for that matter, do you think you’re coming from?
Look, there you are, with all those forces moving around you. You are stillness itself.
Hey, I made a zine! This image is from one one of the spreads, and the whole thing is one single small poem broken up onto the facing pages.
I am wandering again. This may be why I’ve been slow to post sketches, which require a more deliberate momentum to continue drawing and scanning. I am doing my best to bring several preoccupations together into something larger. I am letting my aspiration lead me.
I’ve just finished the Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters. Here is a brief reflection on that journey, and a call-out to one of my favorites in the collection, the poem of William Goode — he who seemed “to go this way and that way, aimlessly.”
Inktober day 6: A convergence of mishaps. Also, I am more than a week behind, and I am quite sure I won’t be catching up.
I am not here to serve any agenda at all, under the eye of anything. I am here as a creature of play, as purpose crafting itself in the current.