24x32” red monoprint

24x32” Green Monoprint

Late notice

https://www.artsfundsb.org/fzaw-john-de-herrera

 

Oil pastel

Screenshot 2020-11-21 at 1.59.22 PM

18x24” ink on photo paper

14x17 oil pencil on bristol

Please consider being a delegate next year

 articlevconvention.org

Revised Poem

(untitled)

Suppose I was to compose a poem,

a telling gesture as supreme as Dali’s

mustache on the Mona Lisa,

or Duchamp’s bicycle wheel

and shovels—something

to put even Plato to bed

as an old man,

murmuring to keep existing,

even as the bubble contracts

upon us now.

But surely, to bring the USA

in now would be the biggest mistake a poet

could ever make in this day and age—

eliciting unspoken outrage at every turn,

in so many different ways,

at just the mention of it.

And yet, altering the course of all human civilization

for the better is the most grand poetry there is isn’t it?

Which means the bathroom smell,

translated into action to rid our minds of such

unpleasantness, ought to be composed—

indeed when even standing in line at the coffee shop

is no fun anymore.

As odious as this one has

become, it should be accorded the accolades

of any piece of art,

along the lines of what Emily Dickinson said,

that the truth being such a rarity,

tis but a delight to speak it.

But who fucking cares anymore?

Yes, people like Emily—people who still pay

attention to the narrative of

affairs which currently tread upon Earth’s face—

they’d want to shout that if

we remove the unpleasantness, such

consciousness will become a thing of the past,

and we could all breath

a sigh of relief, and blow past the following

moment fueled with the ecstasy

of suddenly being free of a long-time problem.

Of course people like Emily and other Artists

would share the following truth;

that holding a convention in the country

with the biggest military budget

would redirect our path to the stars.

We must formally discuss

where we are beneath a current status quo

that history says is most certainly going to slit our throats.

But you’re likely some white person

who likes poetry, and when confronted with the

truth, will stop reading. Even though

poetry with a capital P has always been about

composing words to show it.

I hope you liked how this poem drew you

in with a few artist names,

an ancient philosopher,

and promise of a complicated

gray mush like so much else of what is published

these days—

then landed the truth—

that you’re alive;

that millions of others are too;

and at present a growing number

are calling for a formal discussion

of our collective situation.

6x8” oil pastel

6x8” sumi ink on cotton rag board

10x17” ink painting

10x17” ink-painting

19x24 carbon on bristol

Poem

 Few The Flowers

Don’t you know

who Leonardo

Da Vinci is? Or have you forgotten

because it’s been so

long since we’ve all been remembered?

Looks again at his pages

of science and artistry—

he once drew the most beautiful

copse of trees—

not all humans possess

equal intelligence,

not every monkey

in the tree

is smart as the next,

why artists have always been

revered, for their ability to create

light and warmth

in the midst of icy darkness;

to deliver the goods

and proof that we too

are a magnificence of our own.

Of the bell-curve

of consciousness,

some are dim and some are bright,

most are foliage,

few the flowers.

Photo

28x36” monotype

28x36” monotype

28x36” monoprint

28x36” monoprint

20x27” monoprint

8.5x12” ink painting

15x22” oil pastel

6x8 pastel

8x12 ink painting

18x24” ink colorfield ink painting

6x8” pastel

6x8” pastel

6x8” pastel

19x27” monoprint

22x28” ink on paper

18x24” ink on paper

19x24” ink on paper

19x24” pastel on bristol

19x24” ink on paper

19x24” ink on photo paper

19x24” ink on photo paper

19x24” carbon on bristol

19x24” ink on paper

19x24” ink on paper

12x19” ink on paper

19x24” ink on paper

6x8” oil pastel on museum board

19x24” carbon pencil on bristol

11x14” carbon pencil on bristol

30x38” monoprint (oceanview)

30x38” monoprint

25x25” abstract drawing

9x12” watercolor

9x12” zero art watercolor

9x12” watercolor

12x15” watercolor

16x20” ink on bristol Surface of the Sun 2020

Older poem re-worked and titled

As We Bear These Ills

What is it you would see? If woe or wonder, cease your search and let the following become known to the unknowing world how this came to be—of carnal and bloody acts, of accidental judgments, of slaughters put on by cunning, and deceits fallen upon deceiver's heads. All this can truly be delivered, so let it be told while our minds are wild with words that make us dumb. Let us recount the occasion of our sudden and strange return, lest more plots and errors of mischance occur in this stale, flat world—this garden gone to seed, where thorned weeds posses it, while we are rendered beasts out of sentinels of the Sun we where meant to be.

Some say tis but a fever, this dreaded imago that fills us with fear—its specters that appear when stars have made their course to light the parts of heaven where they do now burn. Do not break, our altogether heart, do not burst arteries like a lion’s, and sinews grow not old—but bear us stiffly up, for we must hold until from dreadful secrecy the dreadful secret is told, and apparitions appear no more upon the horizon of our watch.

We would not have believed it, this strange eruption in our state—so much brass going to weapons—what threat accounts for all this haste day and night? Who can answer the questions of this war? Tis a mote which troubles the mind’s eye, recalling Rome high and triumphant, before falling—graves opening, the shrouded dead shrieking through the streets. Stars with trails of fire, mountainous quakes, the moon sick with eclipse—all harbingers of fates coming on that the heavens and Earth do demonstrate to us now.

Tis very strange, we give it an understanding but no tongue. All is not well when foul deeds rise to overwhelm our eyes from perceiving the lies behind them. Oh angels and ministers of grace! Do not let we who delight in truth as much as life itself wither from a lack of understanding! Show us why these specters have been cast up again! What does this mean, these visitations by the light of the moon, making night hideous and we fools of nature, shaken with thoughts but beyond the reaches of our grasps.

Caught round in a net of villainies, while sorting the plot and play through to its end, is it not damned to let this canker come to further evil? We must defy fear when examples evident as Earth exhort us, we must put on our antic disposition, putting up with the whips and scorns of time, the arrogance of authorities, the law’s delay, and all calamity—we bear these ills rather than fly to others that we know not of, and still the latest news makes cowards of us all! Were these bones begotten for no better purpose than to be used for playing games?! Where is this knowledge which our knowing would help a fate avoid?! Surely there is reason for our want to remember the past, consider the present, and imagine the future! Surely there is a reason for a seat at this table!

We’re asked to cast off our melancholy and look upon the state with kindness, yet is it not an offense to the heavens, the dead, and nature, to subvert us so? In the corrupted currents of this world the gilded hand may shove justice aside, but tis not so above—there, there is no shuffling, no trickery, every action lies in its true nature, where we shall be compelled from the teeth of our faults to give evidence in all. So let us confess ourselves to the heavens and repent what’s past so we may avoid what’s to come in times as obscene as these, where virtue itself bows in pardon to vice, having to beg to do what’s right. The current lords whom we do trust as we would fanged serpents, bear a mandate to destroy our path and marshal us to our doom. So be it, tis sport to have the bombers blasted apart with their own device. Wherever the offense is, let a great axe fall on those cursed heads whose wickedness deprives us of our sense! 

Whose grief bears such emphasis, whose words of sorrow would cause the wandering stars to stand still like a wonder-struck audience? Humanity, fiery in the darkness—how noble in reason, how infinite in ability—how exact and admirable in form and movement—in action how like an angel—in apprehension how like any god; the beauty of this world. But who would chide our tardiness? Do we no longer have the bile to make oppression bitter? Is this late visit but to whet a blunted purpose? Our condition cries so loud to be heard—we question it all! Oh providence direct our course, that we, with wings as swift as thought, may sweep to our revenge!

From this time on our thoughts be bloody or nothing worth! As ocean overpowers a shore with haste and force, our rebellion shall sweep all villainy aside, as if the world begins now, former order to be damned! A desperate disease requires a desperate remedy for relief, and perhaps the heavens and Earth are pleased that we may be the cure! So to the work, and to the future moment where all shall appear as clear to justice as day to the eye.

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