INTRODUCTION: Prairie Art Alliance’s Gallery II at Sixth at Adams features a special part of the gallery which displays the poems of several Springfield area bards, poems which inspired their visual artists to paint special creations based on the poems. Participating poets were asked to also share notes that helped create the poems featured in this terrific cooperative enterprise. I have shared my “It Was A Younger Town,” the poem that inspired Katherine Pippin Pauley to take brush in hand for her part of the equation and will not share it again in this post. Below are “notes” which I might have created for the longer poem. In creating these, I wanted at least three short poems, not necessarily in sequence, relating to remembering places from childhood, the essence of “It Was a Younger Town.” I created four, and though I didn’t intend them as a complete organic (beginning, middle, conclusion) poem there is a hint of that in what follows this. The gallery opens with a First Friday reception in cubist downtown Springfield Friday night , November 3 from 5:00 to 7:30.. On November 17, there will be a special reception in which the artists and poets will be introduced, and the poets will read their creations.
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To make my “Notes” look more “faux-authentico” I printed each in an obtuse angle to the portrait-formatted page, then dipped my index finger into a cup of warm Folger’s Instant coffee with a quarter spoon of white refined sugar and alternatively dripped and slug fingers of the brew onto the printed paper. The process was conveniently random, but I let the slings and drips dry on the paper and evaluated the look before repeating the process three more times from the same cup of by-then-tepid coffee to get the result I wanted in my mind’s eye. Come to the receptions and see if you like the result.
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The Notes of Job
by Job Conger
written October 9, 2011
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There is no peace in history,
seeing the innocence of what I loved
stained by the blood and excrement
of what I could not, did not love.
Memory is not the comforter;
it is the ENEMY!
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An image
for this poem
must have been more
than the grain of sand
that sparkled in the sameness
of all the myriad images
that are forgotten.
It must have captured
more than my
. . . passing gaze . . .
at age seven.
It must have captured
my curiosity
and my lasting affection.
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What blessing can a building
bestow to a living thing?
Shelter, by all means,
a visual for an emotional turn,
a way-point for an important
cataclysm or cozy moments,
a brick and mortar
favorite song.
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The scents and sights
loved me back! I felt
it then and feel it now.
ans wish somehow
I were a brick without
a heart to hurt but a
heart to love and be
loved.
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Live long . . . . . . and proper.
