WRITING ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS

Red and Blue 7.  8x11".                                              © by Ruth Zachary

Writing about relationships between people is a favorite topic for me. The relationship may be between relatives, lovers, friends, or others I observe relating to each other. The title, Blood Tide,  was from subjects suggested by different members in a poetry class, drawn from a hat.

Blood Tide

At night the house breathes blood

            from all the leavetakings of blood

                        relations, a cavernous void left in a

                                     family once replete with connections.

So many dead years on that flood of bleeding

            sorrows and betrayals. Now the living children

                        of those blood relatives travel on blood

                                    into unknown countries, scattered, separate, dilute.

A grand daughter asks about her ancestry.

            A daughter tells her blood is not important;

                        it is only a butterfly birthmark

                                     pooled in the small of her back.

 To see more of my Abstract art work, visit Mixed Media Abstract Art by clicking on the link.

Writing and Images are the © Copyright of Ruth Zachary.

THE SURREAL APPROACH

Apparitions 1.  Photograph.                                                                               © by Ruth Zachary

                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                     The following  poem was created by  writing down impressions, phrases, and lines as they occurred during one morning. The approach felt very surreal, and I had no end in mind: even a topic I could identify, until I began to try to put the words into an order, to make some vague sort of sense out of them. This was the result.

Apparition

She lost her mind one day last week

then found it on this morning, pressed

between the pages of a heavy book,

flattened; like a one-time living rose

no longer round, dry, and colorless.

She found her memories stored

in journals lined up on the shelves.

Someone else had written there

the stories penned about herself,

another life than she had lived.

She found painted dreams, all framed

and hung upon the walls, and in her

pockets;  cobwebs, dusty lists

crossed off; hopes shed along the way;

the unexplored paths of yesterday.

She found her image in the mirror,

a face she scarcely knew, reflected there.

She reached her hand out toward the glass

to draw the visage near and watched

her fingers disappear into another space.

Image and Writing © by Ruth Zachary.

JOT DOWN THOSE GOOD LINES!

Cracked Fragments. Study for Abstract Composition.         © by Ruth Zachary

Dr Jekyl and Mr. Hyde

She  was married to him, once.

She saw her life pouring out as he filled his glass yet again.

Again, she retreated  with  the dogs, away from their home,

checking the packed bag kept in her car,

spending the night in the front seat, with the dogs in back.

For years after he quit drinking, when he stayed out late,

she trembled in her bed, not knowing who would come home.

© by Ruth Zachary

Sometimes poems briefly written down in a moment of emotion, 

can be expanded  or combined with other ideas for writing. The 

second line of the above came first, and the title and first line came

years later, and were used together to good effect, I think. See 

more of my Abstract Art by clicking the link.

Writing and images are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary.

WHERE VISIONS GATHER

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Visions Gather

Shapes take order

out of chaos

as darkness yields to dawn.

Words sound in the virgin snow .

Footprints lead to where

no body moves.

A ghostly promise

compels the artist to make images;

the poet to

make poems of them.

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So often, there is a relationship between the imagery of art and of writing, especially when created by the same person. It is not unusual for writers to be inspired by art, and for artists to want to include words in their art work. There is a sometimes exciting process for a writer to cut out words and phrases from magazines and piece them together in a newly discovered collage poem!

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To see a description of the process Ruth Zachary uses to develop an Abstract Collage, go to her blog post Feb 10, 2014, on Mixed Media Abstract Art.

Art work images and writing are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary