Artist Poem

In a quiet room images cascade
as seeds
from my fingertips

Settle through the restless hours

Words, fabrics, papers, lace
compose juxtapose, light dark
golds and silvers

Through dreams remember feeling

Fall away, catch
begin, touch
lines curve into roundness

Glue holding
ripe melons
hands reaching
eyes peeking through petals

Wings

The Meaning of Roundling

With the edges of our eyes, we catch glimpses
of roundlings peeking through windows.
Gentle creatures, ready to bolt, so fragile
with dark traumas passed onto them.

Best not to talk the language of x,y,z.
A whisper of "why didn't you" or "you should"
is an attack of syntax, a barbed construction
that shatters them. They will run away
with the thought, "It is not safe here."

Once they flee, the void aches
with absence of oval tenderness.

Sometimes they can be enticed
with soft fruits and scents
of fresh lemon, orange and tangerine.
Round stones will please.

Feed them colors, speak in fluted ragas
and offer acceptance.

 

in the wind of a sneeze

i wanted to build a house
the way ants do
hauling tiny crumbs
four times their own size
its brick walls would stack neatly

i wanted people inside
but didn't plan on a naked man
and a girl floating
as if to escape

my scissors took over
irregular rectangles fell
bricks sailed
into dizzying alignments
and windows flew away
on the wings of black birds

 

Prayer

You were bubbles
of wonder when we met
that went pop, pop,
with each blow from life,
each electric shock
making you forget.

You came to my studio
for a drawing class that day,
when out of nowhere,
you changed.

Your mouth matted down
with just enough shape
to blow a single hope,
"Do you pray? Will you
pray for me?"

I said yes, to calm you,
not knowing how,
until I saw your face
in my collage.

For your hair, I can grow
a grass topiary halo, dotted
with a band of pansies,
marigolds and lettuce leaves.

And I can stitch you a dress
of periwinkles, blue cartwheels
to pollinate sky and earth
where snails, the size
of fingernails curl up
and roll over your past.

That day, I said softly,
"Don't be afraid of sadness."

Wearing your purse around
your neck, you sunk into
the soft bed, my couch, where
a young male Daoist once
dreamt of nothingness.

 

C. Albert is a collage artist and poet who lives in Seattle and exhibits nationally. She has recently shown at the Hopper Art Center (New York), Woman Made Gallery (Chicago), Uptown People Gallery (online) and the National Collage Society (Cleveland). She received bachelor's degrees in fine arts and English from the University of Washington. She has recently received awards from the Hopper House Art Center, the National Collage Society and the Northwest Collage Society.

photo Dave Crosier

You can see more of C. Albert's work at her blog:

Runaway Moon

Statement:

As a child, I often wrote plays that my friends and I performed. I wanted to be an artist who lived in an attic. I studied both art and literature in college and as it turns out, I lived in an attic for 13 years.

I collected images from magazines, gluing favorites into a blank book, years before discovering collage. More recently, I began collecting text from magazines and gluing words into collages. The words were cryptic but enticing and I realized I wanted to write too.

I thought poetry was a vegetable I didn't "get" like beets, yet
that's what I wrote. Now I think poetry and beets are mysterious. I especially love beets with feta cheese, walnuts and pomegranate juice.