Melony Terry, The Acrostic

I am happily involved with a former Glendale High School Class of ’72 classmate. Today I realized her name would suit a double acrostic if I stretched out the Y of Terry. Then I asked for three words that were important to her life. Melony’s words were Wife, Children, Family.

Melony was married for more than 40 years to Rich Terry, a wonderful man who with her raised two wonderful sons, Jeremy and Sean. Rich died tragically young, of complications related to COPD, about a year and a half ago. Jeremy married the wonderful Jolene, and they have a son, the wonderful, mischievous and dynamic Andrew, who will be 5 years old quite soon. Sean has wonderful talent both as artist and musician. If that seems like a lot of Wonderfuls, and a lack of descriptive imagination, yes, but I stand by my words.

My challenge was to create a page, and in it a poem, that would well represent Melony and that which she holds dear. To help, Melony provided a family photo album, and so I drew Melony’s grandson Andrew with his beloved Guitar Hero guitar, and I surrounded him with Melony as a baby, Melony and baby Sean, baby Sean and Jeremy, and Melony and Rich on their wedding day.

In the lower right-hand corner is Melony Terry, The Acrostic, with these words:

My life as Wife was Rich & Right

Ensured safe passage site to site

Life with my children full of cheer

Outlasted poverty & fear

Now children’s children capably

Yearn onward. All is Family

Melony has seen my page and expressed approval; and when I asked her if I could make a blog post of it, her most gracious response was, “You should–you worked your butt off on it.”

Melony Terry, The Person, is aces in my book, Friends. I love you, Mel!!

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Holy Father

Armature wire, 1/8″ diameter, 8″ x 4″.

Blog Post #1111: One with Ones

A year and nine days ago Chinese linguist Zhou Youguang, who had written and published a number of books after he turned 100, died at the exact age of 111. Google showcased him on the first anniversary of his death, and, reading about this remarkable man, I thought he’d make a good subject for a blog post; but since I was so close to post #1111, I got hung up with all the Ones involved, since OCD and a fascination with numbers go hand in hand in my case.

I feel a little sorry that Zhou got short-shrifted to a walk-on, but better pocket-biographers then I have had a go at him, so I’ll end by suggesting that you find him via an Internet search and have a go at him yourselves.

 

wolfku

My girl Mel and I were having a video chat, and one enhancement after another led to this:

So I later wrote this:

wolfku

behold my true self
thanks to video chatting
see you next full moon

jubilant little kid

This is wire, 1/16″ diameter, on a background of black poster board. Its transformation into a jubilant little kid depends on the miracle of human pattern recognition.

Do you believe in miracles?

g l i m p s e d

g l i m p s e d

gainsaid are the scarlet scoffers

all chagrined and aloe tropicked

spillways make decanted offers

plump seditionists thus topicked

Here is play with the acrostic form to third-time “glimpsed” and so make of it a motif. That the text makes sense, with a sly, subversive message that invites reader participation, is a bonus; but the priority is the image and what it evokes.

News from Home

Hello. This post is a message. I regret not being a better messenger. The artwork is clumsy, the words are inelegant, the message content is as confusingly ambiguous as a Delphi oracle. News from home is most ambiguous when it is most truthful.

Who is the menacing figure, gripping the acrostic, tears in his eyes, foam at the mouth? Could be Donald Trump, what with the basketwoven hair and the foam at the mouth. Could be myself, what with the tears. We are both citizens of the United States of America. We call America home.

Words:

Now buffoon now fool now pharaoh

Enter scary LOVELESS stare. O

Weapons locked and loaded? AIM

Silence critics–mum’s the GAME

As for the sheet music, it is “Smile” with lyric by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons and music by Charles Chaplin, also known as the “Little Tramp.” The first words are “SMILE, tho’ your heart is aching/SMILE, even tho’ it’s breaking/When there are clouds in the sky, you’ll get by//If you SMILE through your fear and sorrow,/SMILE and maybe tomorrow/You’ll see the sun shining through/For you . . .”

 

mel•low

My girlfriend Melony, known to her friends as Mel, was sitting next to me in my apartment’s tiny dining area, checking her phone. She looked Mellow.

Often her texts are accompanied by hearts. Mine too.

Words:

Methinks meknows a gal

Encryptically well. O

Let the Glow-wax flow

show folk

In the midst of reading ALL HIS JAZZ: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BOB FOSSE by Martin Gottfried, and learning of the friendship between Fosse and Paddy Chayefsky, the acrostic “Show Folk” occurred. Flashy Fosse is Show; and who is more Folksy than the hero of Chayefsky’s MARTY? Off we went.

Here are the words of the double-acrostic sonnet:

Show Folk

SUCCESS: best taken with that grain of snuff
Seize moments, lest the dark steal like a thief
Some mama cats won’t tote us by the scruff
Some ships are built to f o u n d e r on a reef

Huge OPPORTUNITIES have trapdoors too
How quickly handshook YES becomes a No
How quickly sours the Love Nest bill & coo
Howbeit, STRIVE–you may Behold & Lo

Ovations never last. PERSISTENCE will
Obliterate frustration and will quell
Oy-Vehish dark despair. We must distill
Our spirits from beyond ephemeral

We’ll Break A Leg, yet rise above the murk
With Old School secret sauce: workworkWorkWORK