end of pome town

pome town has vanished
it slipped into the air
the pome people all left too
and so did all their hair

it was a sunday morning
the church bells didn't ring
the churches all had disappeared
and so had everything

some say it was an eyesore
some say it never was
some say it just got blown away
like so much navel fuzz

it could have been the landlord
it could be government
but the former site of pome town
awaits redevelopment

on execution morning

touch is the only greatest power
hate is so easy and so coward
touch is the only greatest power

listening is the cold space between us
words slowly penetrate their bullets
touch is the only greatest power

you are the night that makes the sun rise
i am my earth of appetite
hate is so easy and so coward

you are the vibration inside me
we are the eyes that must live dreaming
touch is the only greatest power

touch is the only greatest power
hate is so easy and so coward
touch is the only greatest power

bailey's tiny head

bailey has a tiny head
tiny as a toe
even tho her head is small
she is smart as they go

she can never wear a hat
ear rings are too big
you'd swear that she is headless
when she sings or dances jig

pome town in crisis:
there's a clog deep in the pipes
nobody can figure it
so everyone says "cripes"

bailey to the rescue
with her tiny head
she could take a look inside
and that is what she did

the crisis could be treated
once bailey told them how
so if you have a tiny head
like bailey, take a bow

boiling boils

the boils are boiling sausages
down by the silver stream
they're making them for boys and girls
and serving them with cream

a boil will jump in now and then
and scream with great delight
they have to boil it far too long
far longer than all night

the boils are waiting for the time
to serve the sausage stew
and if you aren't expecting
they'll attach themselves to you

they giggle like a bubble patch
these giddy little boils
they tell the children to eat up
before the sausage spoils

but comes the clean-up, it's a chore
the boils like to daydream
of future sausage boils and such
down by the silver stream

what if

what if your wish
is not your way
what if your here
is not today
what if the bricks
have all gone bad
what if the underthings
are sad
what if the oceans
turn to mud
what if your enemy
is your bud
what if the spaceman
in your brain
makes a mistake
and leaves a stain
what if the social
system jive
buries your head
and feet alive
what if the lions
and the clocks
turned all the keys
and locked your locks

branches

ah, the tired and bumbling branches
tied onto no tree
watch them swing sway on their ice skates
bursting to be free

see the branches at street corners
rolling on their knubs
snapping with the rattling fireshine
snuggling with the cubs

branches hate expectorating
watch them in their strings
making picture frames by squaring
and other crafty things

branches off the tree and weary
looking for some meaning
wait for kindling or for kindness:
any sort of gleaning

jewbilee

the jewbilee was crowded
we saw a lot of backs
we got some magazines to read
from a tall man named max

we sat in vinyl splendor
we sniffed the season's air
we wore our nicest clothing
and our washed and curly hair

the music was delicious
they didn't call our names
altho there were some minor gaffes
nobody took the blames

the stars outside were brighter
despite the advanced hour
we vanished in the gutter night
infused with hebrew power

rock story

i stay in one position
neglecting throws and tugs
my belly side is somewhat moist
and houses several bugs

i once was somewhat bigger
but wind and rain and quake
have brought me to my present size
some day i'll make a break

i have a destination
it is the sand inside
if i wear down to tiny grains
i've everywhere to hide

but now i get to sit here
thru hot and cold of clime
if you are geological
you needn't hurry time

byron

byron is a time machine
he hurtles thru the ages
he writes himself upon the years
clocks turn to him like pages

he lived his youth in ancient times
he was a teen for Caesar
his girlfriend was the renaissance
sometimes he liked to tease her

his twenties were the age of bronze
his thirties, that of steel
he lived his forties during war
he dreamed the peace for real

he eats the tick of time for lunch
he shits it out at night
ends of the world come every day
when he turns out the light

moustache

marla had a moustache
she kept it on a chain
observers said this moustache
could be profiled as insane

tho marla can be mellow
the moustache wasn't so
it had a tendency to brag
and get into a row

it had a few too many
last night, you might have heard
and got a little bit too fresh
with a massive mangy beard

you thought you heard the last of
marla's rash moustache
but its fighting spirit migrated to
her left and right eyelash

link lighting

link searches for lighting
he can't choose which to buy
because he cannot choose, his light
comes mostly from the sky

link must pick a light bulb
he's too choosy to decide
he lives mostly in darkness
it's no sweat for him to hide

fluorescent, incadescent
link doesn't have a clue
because he's never bought one
he has never had to screw

link has a little problem
about which i will remark
he cannot decide on lighting
and this keeps him in the dark

barton and buttons

barton likes his buttons
he thinks it is his call
he likes to see if each one works
he likes to push them all

he'll push one in a socket
he'll push one on a dress
he'll push a button, blue or red
he'll get into a mess

he likes to push the buttons
but that is not his job
his job's to say which ones to push
the pushing's done by rob

but barton likes his buttons
they are his tea of cup
he pushed the buttons, right and wrong
a wrong one blew him up

mad scientist

there is the whole frankenstein thing associated with animation. it is what every cave painter wanted, isn't it, to see that color on the rock turn into movement, turn into the thing that the image tried to capture. in classical art, in the art of the rennaisance, the drawing, the painting, representing in a money way the thing that was drawn, but what if that drawing itself assumed a kind of life. movement isn't life, but it is one closer illusion to life. movement brings with it so many other emotions.
the first animators were really lightning sketch artists. lightning sketch artists were vaudeville performers who drew fast, chalk on blackboard, dark charcoal on light paper. there was a whole act around it, to be sure, a performance that made it more than just watching somebody draw, but it was drawing. a sketch artist performed in front of the movie camera, and if you stop the camera and add to the drawing, and then shoot again, the drawing starts to change without the presence of the drawer, or at least it seems so. and then it was so more amazing than just fast. something that thousands of years were waiting for.
that's a kind of big magic that all those cave painters with their fires might have wanted, might have imagined, might have seen themselves in the flicker of the light as they moved left to right or right to left. they might have seen that bison move a little along the background of rock wilderness. they could have seen some flickering movement, or drew extra legs as if that would add to it. and then the drawing was real, and then the drawing had a life of movement, if not of breath. who needs to breathe if you can move, who needs to talk if you can move your mouth and somebody else can talk.

animation origins

a few days ago i wrote about the origins of Wargoon Flishe. I was reading Joseph Campbell and I was reading James George Frazer's The Golden Bough, and somehow a hero's story, ancient and yet contemporary, began to unwind in my brain.
but how did the animation biz start. It started early with me, with a brown paper grocery bag that i got from a neighbor when i was nine or when i was ten. inside that brown bag was a Brownie movie camera, something already old, from the 1950's, and it was something sitting in an attic gathering dust, and i might do something with it, which is why i got it.
i got some film for it from the drugstore and following the directions and the first thing I did was set it up on a tripod in the basement with an easel and tried to make an animation. i didn't know at that time about the importance of light, but i learned my lesson, for the film came back black, and i don't even remember what that animated film was even going to be about, but i couldn't see it because i shot it too dark.
but soon i got back on my Brownie bicycle, and used a desklamp for light, and cut out paper shapes and moved them bit by bit and pressed down fast on the camera's shutter release, for it had no single frame abilities.
from ten to eighteen i experimented in all kinds of animation, cut paper, drawings, clay, styrofoam, time lapse, pixilation. but when i was eighteen and an adult, i stopped it all.
just a couple years ago i started thinking about how much i missed doing animation. i started playing around with photoshop, and saw a few animators in person talking about their work, at the Walker Art Center, and then on a trip to Los Angeles seeing both Gene Deitch, a hero from my youth, the creator of the Tom Terrific cartoons that were on Captain Kangaroo, and Michelle Connoyer, a Canadian animator with beautiful hand drawn lines.
upon return of that trip i bought a light box, and slowly started drawing on notecards and then post-it notes.
when i took a month off of work in 2005 and travelled by rail across the country, i had lots of train time to draw animated frame by frame and to animate with my video camera and with the post it notes stuck on the train window. In Montreal, i visited the Cinemateque Quebecois, where i saw a program of eastern european animation and walked thru their gallery of the history of animation. i saw the tools of malcolm mclaren, and as i travelled west on the train the idea hatched that i should attempt the grand canyon, the mount everest of animation and to make, on my own, an animated feature film. i told about my idea to an old friend in san francisco, and because i had let the cat out of the bag, i knew i had to do it now. on one more train stretch, or maybe it was while walking down a san fran street, i thought about my wargoon flishe story, with such a flexible line between life and death like so many cartoons, and knew that had to be the basis.

finish starting

i truly like to finish
before i even start
it is the easy way to go
but takes a certain art

i like to wrap up something
before i have begun
i know with such a recipe
i have already won

i champion every running race
right at the starting block
the referees are most impressed
and think i am a jock

i believe every pome
should start on its last line
this one is an exception
and that is superfine

origins

i think about the origins of wargoon flishe, and wonder if i can even remember that far back. about how the epic of gilgamesh seemed to be a nice coat rack on which to hang bits of many other myths and national stories, including the great u.s. myth of rising from mail courrier to be head of the great beast of company. i think about writing that initial book in scratchy dark morning, in hotel rooms and moon colonies, and in the silence of that space station long ago. and the writing tools i had to use, the stones and chisels and ink by the oil barrel. how i wrote it on walls and the walls looked painted black but if you examined it with microscope you would reveal the tiny words. how i had to write it first in my mind like a tightrope waker, balancing that string from ear to ear and falling down the deep chasm of forgetting so many times. quite a few rubber bandages were necessary. i wrote with so many molecules, i polished the book with nuclear rags, and then i twas done and then i had hardly even started.

pushy patience

mrs. pushy has to pace
scream a little with her face
mr. patience waits in line
reads correctly every sign

mr. pushy won't wait long
his procedures turn out wrong
mrs. patience takes her time
stops to listen to bells chime

mrs. pushy in a huff
her whole day just turns out rough
mr. patience has a grin
his reward for discipline

mr. pushy has a fit
loook at how his brow is knit
mrs. patience just sits down
best blood pressure in the town

24 belly hours

chilly morning when i wake
night will cure the belly ache

tepid lunchtime apple eat
makes the power to move the feet

warmer afternoon in force
mind drifts off to dinner course

early evening loses light
have a snack or don't feel right

in the night time eyes are weight
fall asleep and dream my fate

In the Wargoon Flishe Watch department: Yesterday I had the day off from work and so I worked on a website for Wargoon Flishe. Now it is a movie, now that it has a web presence. The site is just a simple set of things so far, but hopefully it has room to grow. sloppyfilms.com/wargoon is the address.

four suns

first sun say to me
"i rise up very high
if you don't see my smiling face
there no such thing as sky"

second sun say to me
"i shy and hide in cloud
on some day i save you from bright
for sun that is allowed"

third sun say to me
"i sit up in the trees
horizon is the place for me
and my sun life of ease"

fourth sun say to me
"i must stay out of sight
if i don't hide beneath your toe
there no such thing as night"

backwards bus

we caught the bus to backwards
we had to stand in line
we knew where it was going from
the destination sign

we rode the bus to backwards
it was the nicest ride
it took us clear to yesterday
breaking thru the other side

we rode the bus to backwards
we did not face the front
we saw where we were leaving
to be absolutely blunt

we rode the bus to backwards
and arrived before we left
the fare was rather steep
which left our wallets quite bereft

change of plans for poetry

the pomes were going
but forgot their way
no route means no travel
means they have to stay

the pomes were leaving
but there was no door
no door means no outside
they sat on the floor

the pomes were ready
but ready for what
no knowledge, no reason
and so they stayed put

the pomes were going
but didn't know where
no destination?
remain and breathe air

scenes from a campaign

What is Wargoon Flishe? Wargoon Flishe is not a what, it is a who. Really, it is a what, a few squares with a nose. He has come to save the day, he has come to save something.

Wargoon Flishe is an audio book with moving illustrations. It is a child's tale of cannibalism. It is the primitive animation of the computer. It is the shapes of sound, the smallest mind. It is the mite without the mighty.

It is something that had to be done to see if I could do it. It is an illustration of how easy. It is left to all its mistakes, a painting of a lie, a sharpie pen party. It is movement and color and words. It is not a why, it is a simply what.

What does Wargoon Flishe mean in the larger matter of images of black marks and red marks and the loud sounds that make you notice. Nothing really, nothing. A snail's fastest trail race. A miniature child's nasty nose sculpture. A nice cartoon about cannibalism, mass murder, and marketing.

animation diary

animation is, or has to be
to some degree
alchemy
the audience has to believe
or to suspend their belief
long enough to think
that these scraps of paper
these blots of ink
are anything worth listening to
worth watching for humanity
what keeps us fixed to
images on walls
cave paintings to
computer generated flat screen fish tanks
these mutterings in paper
to which i am charging ahead
to the end
to the can i quit
to the that's all folks
anything but blowing ignoring newspaper
the sound is a bit of it
all those sound effects with my mouth
trying to sell it with my mouth
trying to
with color
with speed

return to Wargoon

I, the fictional animator Akre, have locked Dr. Zork into a box so that he can no longer unleash his foul opinions about me and my animation actions.

Dr. Zork is the character who created me, but I have done him in, and now I resume work and on the animated feature film Wargoon Flishe, which I will soon finish.

Wargoon Flishe is ancient animation. It is cave drawing images carved upon the pages of modern magazine advertising. It is a reaction to the sickeningly slick computer animation that rules the day.

I get so tired of those animated epics with the cute characters that are one child or another of Lassiter and Luxo. I want to see something with mistakes and sweat left in, where animation meets the real world of error and falling down, much like the puppet animation of the past where you could see fingerprints and errors corrected in the next few frames. Light reflections on animation cels and all that jazz.

And so I am working on Wargoon Flishe. It is all a mess, but I am having a blast working on it. Now I am up to the music, made out of some scratchy records in my possession.

There is no pome of the day today.