Gestational Drive

Susan Bass Marcus

I was in my second trimester, carrying my first child. We called the fetus ‘Thumper.’ Sex undetermined for I was pregnant before the perfection of ultrasound screening. Imagining this little being in me, twisting and twirling, pushing out and pressing down, I’d talk to her/him, play classical music AND rock, and exercised for both of us. By the beginning of the last trimester, I’d enrolled in a sculpture class. Feather rock looked like a manageable  medium. A roly-poly happy baby emerged as I chiseled and rasped away at the tufa-like stone. Although our daughter lives more than 1000 miles from us today, the sculpture remains with my husband and me.

Susan Bass Marcus is a native Chicagoan who makes her home in the city’s South Loop. In 2015, she published her fantasy novel Malevir: Dragons Return. Her stories have been published in After Hours Magazine (print), Bewildering Stories (bewilderingstories.com), Horrorseek (http://www.horrorseek.com/home/horror/darkfire/ficarch.html), and Fictitious ( http://www.fictitiousthejournal.org/). This is her second featured post on Recycled. Her first can be found here.

read more at http://www. malevir.com

©Susan Bass Marcus, 2017

 

Donald’s Villanelle

The villanelle is a poetic form with its origins in Italian rustic song (‘villanelle’ deriving from the Italian word ‘villano,’ which means ‘peasant,’ or, perhaps, from ‘villa,’ Latin for ‘farm’). Speculation locates it in a tradition of ‘round’ songs (remember those from kindergarten?) sung to accompany the repeated rituals of agriculture: sowing and reaping.

Jean-Francois Millet: Buckwheat Harvest: Summer; 1868-1870; pastel

It evolved into its present form in the 16^th century, in French poetry. Throughout history and up to the present day, poets have been smitten with the villanelle, ensuring its ongoing evolution even as it resonates with echoes of the past.

Its structure is as follows:

1. It is a poem of nineteen lines.

2. It has five stanzas, each of three lines, with a final one of four lines.

3. The first line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas.

4. The third line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas.

5. These two refrain lines follow each other to become the second-to-last and last lines of the poem.

6. The rhyme scheme is aba. The rhymes are repeated according to the refrains.

Donald’s Villanelle

I’ve done nothing wrong, you know
Russia, kickbacks, it’s all lies
I hope that you can let this go.

The fake news witch hunt, on it goes
Sad! Their whos and whats and whys
I’ve done nothing wrong, you know

There’s a high road, there’s a low
Drain the swamp and scrape the skies
I hope that you can let this go

Crooked H, bad hombres, foes
So-called judges, leaking spies
I’ve done nothing wrong, you know

Walls and tariffs, jobs and dough
You’ll tire of winning, all you guys
I hope that you can let this go

Believe me, time will tell and show
Great Again, Tremendous Size
I’ve done nothing wrong, you know
I hope that you can let this go

©Melinda Rooney, 2017

[I’m indebted to The Making of a Poem: a Norton Anthology of poetic forms; Mark Strand and Eavan Boland, eds. New York, W.W. Norton & Company; 2000.]

Birth, Maiden, Mother (two views), Crone

This sculpture depicts five aspects of Woman’s self/life: Birth on the bottom, the beginning for us all, a Maiden from the view of her back, a hugely pregnant me viewed on her left side, a Mother pulling her babe to the breast on the face (shown) side, and the crone as viewed on her right side.

This one was carved in 1995, when Benjamin was just a babe, out of soapstone. I was working on the piece the morning of April 19, 1995, when it fell to my kitchen floor and broke into pieces. I was devastated. I learned on the radio later that morning that at 9:02 AM, a truck had exploded in the street in front of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building. About 90 minutes later, Timothy McVeigh was stopped by an Oklahoma state trooper for driving a vehicle without a license plate… This is one of those things that make me believe in God. When I put it together that my goddess sculpture had broken so close to the time (if not at the same time) of this huge disruption in our nation’s psyche, I knew I had to heal her. So I found a way to use the dust from her making to glue the pieces back together, and she appeared almost perfect. Now that she has aged–sat outside in the dirt, been soaked in the rain, and been transported from state to state with Benjamin and me, you can begin to see her cracks.

I love this sculpture. I have short hair in it as I did for Benjamin’s birth, and it is just the right size to hold in your lap and turn around to see all the sides. 

[text by Nan]

©Nan Nickson, 2017

Nan Nickson’s mission statement: ‘Running Rooster Farm is a live, organic, performance art project where I try to grow my own food wherever I am at.’

 

Recycled Limerick

Kimmy Allan

…public service announcement meets poetic form. Result: recycled art with a message.There once was a girl named Renee
Who recycled things every day
And because less trash
It meant far more cash
For she had more money to play

©Kimmy Alan, 2017

Kimmy Alan is a wannabe poet from the land of Lake Woebegone. A retired steel worker who was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, Kimmy Alan pursued his love of poetry as a distraction while undergoing chemo and radiation. For him, poetry has proven to be a powerful catharsis, as he is currently in remission. When he isn’t writing he spends time with his four wonderful nieces, whom he says “are driving him to pieces.”

 

Like & Share

1. Who are you named after?
   No one. My mother opened a baby name book and dropped her finger on a page. My father came and went and left me in his wake, a little seed and I grew into a little plant, and she said she’d jump off a bridge before she’d name me after him. All I know is that he is a rock star. She didn’t want me doomed, she said once, to either having to live up to him or repeating his mistakes. She had this thing about fate and free will. She went to college for awhile I guess. She read me a lot of books.
2. Last time you cried?
   When she died. I was twelve. She jumped off a bridge.
3. Do you like your handwriting?
   Very much. I was praised as a child. People are more likely to help you out if you take some trouble making your sign. You can’t just scribble any old which way on some crappy piece of cardboard. You don’t want to look crazy. You have to make an effort, have a little self-respect. If I can scare up the right kind of marker and a relatively blemish-free surface, I mean, get out of my way. (Dumpsters outside movie theaters are great. If they haven’t just crumpled them up, if they’ve gone to the trouble to roll them which you’d be surprised, a lot of them do, the back of a movie poster is the perfect medium: glossy, pure white, just stiff enough to withstand some weather. And there are a couple of the librarians here, they loan me Sharpies. Sharpies only used to come in black but they’re all colors now.) Sometimes I’ll make a little picture: a puppy, a bunch of flowers. One of my foster moms, she liked to do art. And school was not for me but I did like the books and art class. My philosophy is you make it nice for people, they’ll want to make it nice for you.
4. What is your favorite lunch meat?
   They don’t make it anymore. Or maybe they do and I just haven’t been in a store for awhile. It was this baloney with sliced olives in it. Pimento loaf. On rye bread with cream cheese. Foster Family Four, if memory serves.
5. Longest relationship?
   My mom. We lived in a bus. After that I kind of went from house to house, you know, sometimes a juvenile facility. A hospital once.
6. Do you still have your tonsils?
   She didn’t believe in doctors. And we couldn’t pay for one anyway.
7. Would you bungee jump?
   Not likely. But I’ve been known to surprise myself. I kind of have enough on my plate.
8. Favorite kind of cereal?
   I’ve only ever had one kind. We didn’t do refined sugar or preservatives and plus the no money thing so I stole a box of Frankenberry from a Kroger’s one day when we came into town and ate it in the parking lot. I was six I think. I don’t know. I guess I’d eat Frankenberry again. I’m not sure they make it anymore, like the pimento loaf. It makes your poop a funny color.
9. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
   I avoid shoes. It’s what’s nice about warm climates. That and you can sleep outside and not freeze to death. There’s a shoes rule here, but I hole up in one of the computer cubicles so I’m generally not seen. I bring all my shit in with me, you know, because you need to keep an eye, and that has likewise never been a problem. As I said, I think it’s preferable by all that there be the option not to see certain things.
10. Favorite ice cream?
    Ah, see, now you’re just messing with me.
11. What is the first thing you notice about a person?
    The way they pretend not to see me. Everyone’s different, the way they do it, like fingerprints. It’s why I make an effort with the sign.
12. Football or baseball?
    Baseball. Spring training down here. Nice guys. I watch through the fence.
13. What color pants are you wearing?
    You mean originally? Couldn’t tell you.
14. Last thing you ate?
    Why? You offering?
15. What are you listening to?
    Grunge. Any and all. Once when I nagged her my mother told me that’s what my dad played. So I think sometimes hey, maybe this song I’m listening to? Maybe that’s him. They make me use these headphones. You know: shhhh. I like YouTube. And these quizzes. No one can see you on Facebook, so no one has to on purpose not see you. Simplifies things for everybody. I have a profile and everything, I’ve made some friends, you know, I have a list. I get to answer questions as if someone really wants to know. They say this stuff about privacy, about stealing your data, but I got nothing to steal, and privacy is overrated. You only care about privacy when you’re not alone all the time.
16. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
    Burnt Sienna. I loved crayons as a kid, still do. That little sharpener in the box. Sometimes with a new box I’d just run my fingers over the tips and not want to use them because they were so perfect.
17. What is your favorite smell?
    Simmering garlic and onions.
18. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
    Some lady at the shelter.
19. Married?
    Once. Wasn’t for me.
20. Hair color?
    Blonde. The greenish is from chlorine. I sneak into people’s yards sometimes, you know, use the pool. One place? Really rich folks, never there. Easy to creep in through the woods, lame security system. It’s called an Infinity pool, and it just tips right off the edge of the world. That’s a favorite spot.
    
21. Eye color?
    Brown, but kind of dull and blurry, like beer bottles on the beach.
    
22. Favorite foods to eat?
    Whatever I can find. Whatever they give me.
23. Scary movies or happy endings?
    Depends on my mood.
24. Last movie you watched?
    Wizard of Oz. That’s a weird fucking movie. No one ever points that out.
    
25. What color shirt are you wearing?
    Formerly white.
26. Favorite holiday?
    New Year’s. People give you drinks, you know, they’re drunk so they’re nice to you.
27. Beer or Wine?
    Do I have to choose? I mean, I’d prefer weed but I had to give it up awhile back. It made me too hungry.
28. Night owl or morning person?
    Both. I can’t afford to be choosy.
29. Favorite day of the week?
    I stopped keeping track awhile ago. You’d be surprised how quickly it stops mattering. I hate Sundays though and I always know when they are because they are when the library’s closed. The library’s quiet. You can’t believe how noisy the world is when you’re outside all the time.
30. Favorite season?
    No seasons here. I miss the fall sometimes, the trees like they’re on fire, frost in the grass. It got cold in the bus, but my mom was always there and we’d bundle up, and I don’t know how she did it, but she was always warm.

    
    ©Melinda Rooney, 2017

Recycled Puppets

Susan Bass Marcus

Puppet artist, fiction writer, and former museum professional Susan Bass Marcus has made more than 100 puppets, most for performance. She incorporates found material, she says, because ‘paint, canvas, and other art supplies cost a lot. Besides, it’s more fun to re-purpose stuff.’

Like an alchemist, or a magical character in a fairy tale, Ms. Marcus makes gold from straw, jewels from stones, treasures from trash. She recycles.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Susan Bass Marcus is a native Chicagoan who makes her home in the city’s South Loop. In 2015, she published her fantasy novel Malevir: Dragons Return. Her stories have been published in After Hours Magazine (print), Bewildering Stories (bewilderingstories.com), Horrorseek (http://www.horrorseek.com/home/horror/darkfire/ficarch.html), and Fictitious ( http://www.fictitiousthejournal.org/).

Featured Image by Edward Gorey