coffee table

ashes, roaches, tweezers, matches

our hands a foot apart

not touching until

you pass the heavy book of

Picasso paintings

tapping the cover telling me

without telling me

the days grow shorter

a candle burns slowly

security in its perch

atop the bottle of cheap wine

(a pair of feline eyes stare

through the glass top sharing

perfect secrets knowing what is real)

"who believes in love anymore?" you

say, a provocation? an invitation?

"maybe," i reply, "maybe!"

if it is you

who is of

love and secrets perfected by scars

but!

you feel untouchable heavier than

this table carrying

questions that burn, that smoke

that penetrate us, but

why?

i'm alive enough to know i'm

near you

not near enough to you to

know i'm alive

douglas brent smith

Comments

You Can Be Positive

You Can Be Positive - collage by douglas brent smith.

Levitating a Small Guitar - sketch by douglas brent smith (probably 1991). "Do you think that he could levitate a large guitar, that is to say, a normal sized guitar as well?" "No doubt. It might take some practice, though." "Does it come naturally?" "It comes with practice." "That is more like a ukulele than a guitar." "Nope. It has six strings. Guitar." "Small" "But he could also levitate a large guitar. Maybe one wasn't available." "Well, you've got to start someplace." "Yes." - dbS -

Downstream Corporation

Downstream Corporation - collage by douglas brent smith, 30 August 1991. The board of directors is not in the mood for slacking. The stream must keep flowing and the product must roll. There is money to be made, but wait! That pause for fun has already begun. For most of my life, collages all came together in one day. They could take hours, but I would seldom stop working on one until it was done. Usually the radio would be playing endlessly in the background -- WMMR when I lived in NJ or PA, WXRT when I lived in Chicago. For this collage, it was WXRT all the way. - dbS -

Worldview Built In a Day

Worldview Built In a Day - collage by douglas brent smith, 3 January 1988

Worldview Built In A Day With Fire

Worldview Built In A Day With Fire - collage by douglas brent smith, 3 January 1988 Something about this collage causes me to page quickly past it, yet if I spend more time absorbed in it there is more to see. I pondered cropping it. I cut out dozens of pieces of pictures that could go in with it, but found it hard to obscure the central image. Worldview? Examination? Built in a day? The hints of mixed media with the pen lines were attempts to draw it all together. Did it work?

A Full Moon Wasn't The Half of It

A Full Moon Wasn't The Half of It -- collage by douglas brent smith, 1986

Ties

We are bound to each other in ways that cannot be untied. -- doug smith

One Spirit One Energy One World

One Spirit One Energy One World - collage by douglas brent smith, 16 November 1991

What The Cats Discovered

What The Cats Discovered - digital collage by douglas brent smith, 2 March 2024 With glue and paper, once you've set the glue you either live with it, tear it off, or paste something over it. That makes the work exacting and a bit risky. With a digital collage, such as this one, you can change your mind and simply iterate. That's fun, too. There could be an endless series of versions of the same picture that is not the same picture. I don't necessarily want that, but I wasn't sure I was satisfied with the first version (above) so here are some alternatives. The What the Cats Discovered Remix, or More of What The Cats Discovered: More of What The Cats Discovered (Outside Remix) - douglas brent smith 2 March 2024 ore of What The Cats Discovered, Inside Remix, douglas brent smith 2 March 2024 What one do you like the best? I promise that I will NOT do this with every collage. Tonight, it was fun.

Make Waves

Make Waves - collage by douglas brent smith, 19890601 Oddities Unexplained: This collage, created June 1, 1989, appears on page 249 (with the back-side of the page simply the title) of journal #25. Communication, and the following poem, "Waves" was written on June 30, 1990 (more than a year later) and appears on page 251 of the same journal. I think how something like that happens is that there was a time when I created collages in my journals deep within the pages, long before the journal writing caught up. Plus, this particular journal took longer than usual to write. Does it matter? Not much. But, there you have it. Here's the poem: Waves everything on the surface develops a skin of its own unexamined, unrevealed, unkissed by the sun and then something falls with the unrelenting force of gravity and breaks that surface bearing a new moment which makes waves ohmyohmyohmyohmyohmy holycowholycowholycowholycow... but then the waves dissipate and the skin of the surface