If not this world...

This started out as a frustration with bureaucracy and ended up a sly remark on a society that may exist in a possible dystopian future. Includes a nod to Idiocracy. This was a lot of fun to write!


I built a poem. It's good as they get!
But I must get a poetic license for it
At least before anyone sees that it's mine
And the municipality issues a fine.

A license for poetry is what mollifies that
Which angered the Trumpen proletariat -
A license for poetry, where a fee is paid
And the poet's content approved for trade.

So off I went to the government bureau
With poem and references, tidy and thorough
With my identification and form printed online
With a belief that the system was fair, just and fine.

I edged my poem towards the window
Composing last-minute changes to the innuendo
Until the public servant at the workstation
Snatched it from me in exasperation

And said "New license or renewal today - wait
Did you get this approved? I don't see the date
Or for that matter, the form approving the intricate
Prose of this work. Filled out in triplicate."

I left defeated; the walk home was bitter
Both from the cold and from being a quitter
But who can compete with government forms
And the endorsed entertainment of "Ow, My Balls?"

Daily: Day 3

Daily: Day 2

Little Dreamer

Little Dreamer
The Low Notes newest tune. It's different every time we do it but always loads of fun to play

Daily Comic Journal

One of my favorite artists did a daily comic blog for a while: http://www.emitown.blogspot.com/

I like the format and figure it's good practice to draw normal daily things, interspersed with other random doodles. Mine is a bit more rough and haphazard :)

We'll see if I can make time for it every day.

New Song - Transformation

Transformation

This is my newest song - finished a couple of days ago.  It's a rough recording but listenable.  This encapsulates where I am - excited about what is to come and coming home to Seattle.  It surprised the hell out of me because this has been a trying time, but my subconscious is obviously excited about the future!

Gotta Have

https://soundcloud.com/dougmortenson/gotta-have1
This is a practice track of a song I am working on to sing in my band "Thieves". There are blank spaces where the guitar players, Lee and Alan, will play bottleneck solos in open E tunings.

The General Paralysis of Insanity

Plath wrote about her own high fever
Unfolding words in a backwards origami, conjuring
Hallucinatory ritual purification and sex from
Jagged syllables hooked out of oblivion.

Fevers break, as do hearts; meanwhile
Poor skeleton steps out
Dressed up in bad blood, bad brain, bad skin
And the deeds of another "ought".

It wasn't fever that killed her, but frenzied hopelessness
Redolent of rotting vegetation, heavy and sweet.
Nobody ever brings plants to hospitals
That can survive winter.

Poor skeleton.
One of these days
You will cast off your death
And be free.


Inspiration: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/02/there-are-almost-no-obituaries-for-sylvia-plath/273032/
I read Plath's entire body of work in my early teens; she's the Marilyn Monroe for the bluestocking set. I still re-read her poems for solace; in earlier poetry the rhymes are so joyful and her later poetry gives death an allure usually reserved for lust. She has such a gift and still worked so hard.

Tiny arts

From this weekend

Floating over a rainbow

https://soundcloud.com/dougmortenson/rainbow

A new tune my jazz band the Low Notes is working on. The Drums (not recorded yet) are double time, and the melody sort of drifts above a field of cymbals.