DORIAN GRAY.

I can't see the light

I'm thrown in disgust

They speak of feats

The housed forever

A howling wind

Changed my course

It blew me out

Of bounds so sore

All the walls

All the walls that bound me

Descending bleak and put upon

I chew my cheeks

To wake up from

The vase grows bigger

To my eyes

These eyes that sniggerAnd despise

The wall grows taller up to doom

Shoes in my room

Thrown in disgust

At how I fall

To my worst

Of course you sayYou don't understand

Your words your fiction

Your crooked hands

But clearly nowI tell you man

That all I say Is all I can

For I am nothing But my sin

Until I learn

To caste them in

While young girls fangs And crystal wrists

Wait patiently For me to twist

I look away To distant rains

To water falls And honey days

And boys in blackAnd blue rinse eyes

Gaze whistly at my slender thighs

I twist a shade to my right

And spit at beelzebub on sight

And go on loving all I see

For here I live on patiently

Clerarly now I tell you man

That all I say is all I can

For I am nothing but my sin

Until I learn to caste them in

peter murphy, crystal wrists.

...........................................................................................................................................................................

Not on top of my game lately. I won't bore you with the details. There are, however some changes to the menu here fairly soon. I can see you all yawning in anticipation.

M.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

The Power of poetry comes from the ability to defy logic

Defy Logic Often

The Power of poetry comes from the ability to defy logic
Defy Logic Often

This is just a post to say to those I love and Fhionn in particular:

The Power of poetry comes from the ability to defy logic

Defy Logic Often

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25rF9nFdPmE

Peace.

M.Z.

HERO AND HEROIN.

I found this today. Frankly it sent a shiver through me. I'll meet you on the otherside:

Sources close to freelancers inform me that DC Comics has a new in house policy for pencillers. Aside from very specific contracted creators (such as Jim Lee), any penciller contracted to work on a monthly book must deliver complete turnaround of 22 pages of work in four weeks. Not a month, four weeks. If that schedule isn’t maintained, they’ll pull pages and assign them to other creators. And you may run short of future work. A reduction in quality is more acceptable than a reduction in quantity.
Specific examples I’ve been given include the recent issue of “Wonder Woman” was half Dodson and half Ron Randall. Also why Koi Turnball was dropped from “Jack Hawksmoor.” And it has been pointed out that there are already three fill-ins on the new “Legion” schedule.
Creators are also being dropped from exclusive contracts over this new regime. Expect certain publishing vultures to swarm.

It seems at first glance to be pretty straight forward. I mean, who wouldn't want to get the book out on time right? I started that way, getting a book out pretty much on time for almost two years. Then I was pretty well versed in the furious pace of the so called "mainstream". Right here I'll do the old chestnut: Freelancer to editor, " well, you want it fast, or good?" Editor to freelanced, "both". Ho ho ho.

What really got to me was the response to this little news tidbit. Most of the peoole who wrote in supported the opinion that books should, regardless of quality need to come out on time rather than as made as well as can be made.

This strikes me as addiction. Not common sense, not hopeing for the best book possible, but rather just getting them. Now, it's a sad fact to most editors out there that the goddamn art takes to fucking long. If you are the kind of artist that really wants to ink yourself, well, you'd best keep it simple. Or, have a studio setup of several other artists you can flog off the small shit to. Best to just keep it simple, that way the editor can whip it over to a conglomorate of computer colorists to "fill in the spaces" that you had to skip over to keep it on time. Hurrah! on time! You lucky devil you, you can get PAID!

Then you start all over again.

Addiction. Gotta have it, even if it's been stepped on A LOT. It's better than nothing. Month in month out. The same dynamic is at play: quailty doesn't matter, the good will of your man doesn't matter as long as you pony up for the stuff. You usually do it alone so you can bliss out as much as the cut-rate shit will let you. Then, you're out looking for more because it wasn't good enough to last.

The addicts are killing the very thing they want. The dealer just keeps hitting it to maximize income while you just line up for more. Meanwhile the stuff you love so much is getting weaker and weaker until you secretly hate the very thing you love most. But you line your ass up anyway.

I left that world for that reason. Not because I was told right to my face, "I am the company and I'M drawing this, not you, so you do it my way." Not because I was told I couldn't draw hands right, even after I'D LIGHTBOXED THE DAMN THINGS FROM MY PHOTO FILES.

No, I left it behind because I saw what I loved, what I wanted to do with all my efforts to make beautifully done, was actually irrelevent.

Never again my friends. That's why I've spent to much time, to much much needed money trying to forge a different road for myself. Good or bad, I'll stay true to the thing I love.

I'm addicted to love. Without it, it's all just so much junk.

M.Z.

M.Z

THE DONNER PARTY, TABLE FOR ONE.

Hurrummph.*

I went into the studio today, expecting, no, really expecting to just dig in and WORK .

But, while not reeeally frozen anymore, a cold front blew in late last night with winds from due north. The ambient ait temp was hovering around the upper forties in there. To cold to really get anything done. So, another day of forced inactivity. I feel abit like the donner party, only the sole member. Eat myself.

Right. Save me a leg.

So, here's a brief entertainment: just a little number by Peter Murphy,"The Scarlet Thing in You". One of the cleverest Sufi songs I've ever heard. Sufi love songs work on many levels, the trancendant, the mundane,( I won't say, profane because that would be misleading) and the space between. His Wife did the corriography. She's the Turkish national dance theaters director. It also rocks hard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9lZC0zaQwc Play it loud.

Right then.

It will become invevitable that the days grow warmer, though right now I'm trying with some willpower to not climb the drapes. I'm looking to buy fonts for the final lettering as I can't afford the real thing. Just more work for my bad self. Though, the damn things havn't gotten any cheaper over the years have they? Nosireee bob.

My friend Malena sent me a cut from the Hidden Variable cd her vocals are feartured on. I can't say enough. Honestly, it's pure spine tingleing stuff. She's gotta voice like river deep mountain high baby. Now, if it'd just come out. Seems these days all I do is wait. My ass is getting really comfy with my thumb.

*sigh*

Think spring my dear friends, think spring. Hard.

M.Z.

...HOW DO YOU PLEAD?

"In a green island, there was a mysterious meadow, ruled by a lonely robust bull who fed on its abundant foliage without having to share even a single blade of grass with someone else.
But the voracious bull would consume all its green slopes till sunset, growing big as a monster, but leaving the island completely barren.
This would at the same time give rise to an immense fear of starvation in him, as he had nothing left to survive the next day.

So by sunrise, this worry would torment and make him emaciated and thin as a thread.
But all of a sudden in the magical island, the grass would grow again high above his horns, and the bull set on a grazing-spree to lose even his leisure to ruminate.
It had been happening for centuries, but every night the anxiety of tomorrow would reduce him to bones and the bull could never convince himself against it."


Rumi.


Gulity as charged your honor.


The studio is still semi-frozen, but getting there.
When waiting on the inevitable, it's difficult not to dream of all the what-ifs of tomorrow.


Steady as she goes,

M.Z.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2rDp6FnbP0

just because.

STASIS.

The cold snap let up enough to get back to work today. There was only one problem.
The last day I was there, somehow I'd bumped the only heat I have in the studio and without knowing it, pulled the plug. Three days of forty below zero.
The result: everything, and I mean everything, paint, jars of water, nozzels on varish cans, absolutely everything was frozen solid. Completely rock hard.

It will take several days of easy warming to bring everything up to snuff. Until then, I wait.


some more.

Ah, Fuck.

M.Z.

KEEP DOING IT UNTIL YOU GET IT RIGHT.

Iam Al-Kahira, the comparer of nonsense and flowers,

Iam grateful for my stupidity, admitted easily, yet I am concerned with specific
Details of style as I sit here in rags.

By circumstance not by choice this shrub has blossomed: by choice and not by
Circumstance this life has been left plain.

I made an effort and found stuff to ignore, leaving rusty strings unstuck.
I neglect the spectacular and overlook the apparently important with deliberation.

I’ve waited eons for the reversal of my interests: now life has become the joke
And the sweetness and hilarity of my own thoughts have turned into a
Point of fascination for me.

No matter what anyone tells you: I don’t belong to any creed or sect, culture or
Race, nor to any period in history.

My only qualification is the age of my soul: I own three hillside palaces of quiet
Pre-dawn moon sound.

Humiliation is my clothing that I wear to sit and bark with the dogs. I disconnect
Like dusk and most likely no one will bring flowers to my grave.

I am ardent without deed and I am information zero; unimportant iridescent:
Grand palace of mercy.

Till now I stayed in one place not avoiding you; now that the traditions
Are beginning to dissolve, I put on my winter coat and walk away. Business done.

My contemporaries have declared society to be the central item and are discussing
Things of importance as I’m speaking to you now.

As my mother taught me to, I keep to myself a lot.

I am the lover of trees, found worthy of loneliness.

I could be the postman, the milkman, the sick person, the transvestite.
It takes 1, 2 recognize 1…
I am the unknown dervish.



If you had any idea how important this piece is to me.
Time to go............

M.Z.