Senior Week
Introduction
Even though we're often thought of as community icons and public personalities onsite, the community of senior members is wonderfully broad - both in terms of our personal experiences and activities onsite, and our artwork. Below I've selected some work across various genres and media by DeviantArt's senior members to showcase how diverse we actually are. Some of these pieces are iconic in the DA galleries, but others are less-known or by people from long ago who you might have forgotten.
Since there are so many seniors, I've had to limit the number I could post in this article. For an extended sample, see This Collection or check the gallery at dAseniors!
Seniors' Art
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Three thousand bloody words.
He swore and sucked hard on the spindly, hand-rolled cigarette. The raw, bitter kick at the back of his throat nearly made him choke and he spluttered, swallowing the reflex and the smoke and holding his breath until red lights danced in front of his eyes.
In the corner the girl cowered, limbs crunched tightly against torso, her weeping muffled.
The cigarette dropped into last night's coffee mug with a faint hiss. Grunting heavily, he reached around the desk, fumbled another paper and carefully pinched a tiny wad of tobacco.
Not much left. Damn.
Two of the joss sticks had gone out. He relit them with his lighter, savouring the burnt sandalwood that thickened the atmosphere. The laptop's shine was muted, but the nearly blank white page was beginning to be irritating. Licking parched lips, he checked the word count. 166 Word
Senryu Series 121.
adjunct office
even the printer
struggles
2.
patio nap
he still wakes up
in Iraq
3.
essay due
his grandmother dies
again
4.
cult documentary
another gnat
in the lemonade
5.
overcast,
I choose not to round
her grade
6.
my rent
on the preacher's back,
autumn wind
7.
corporate merger
a new boss, the age
of my son
7(b)
corporate ladder
the boss graduates
with my son
8.
gossip blog
the same old bats
circling
9.
turning 60
even his shadow
thins
10.
eviction notice
I purchase 10 acres
on Farmville
11.
deep in love
she invades my side
of the bed
12.
meeting her dad
a loose thread
in my sweater
13.
newly wed
until debt
do us part
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Mature Content
No Train For YesterdayI spend two & a half smiles on strangers,
drink a bottle of casual words
& head down a silent street, accompanied
by muted endeavors of faceless clowns.
It's a tired, malnourished day, strained
over frail dusty bones of hours
& as I run my hand along a minute,
it feels like leather, worn from wear.
You still arise in idle thoughts:
the way you stopped to watch me at
an ambiguous train station up north.
You were the streetlight that blinked on
& off in futile attempt to murder wind
while snow raced horizontal lines
& hurried past large metal doors.
You seemed to revel in movement,
smoothed air with your skin
as I headed on. Gave shelter
to a misplaced thought & lost another
in muddy puddles behind my temples,
aching now, condensed for spare.
The smell of old liquor & masculinity
still lingers in my nostrils' memory.
You asked for clarity in all I said
out of spite & I couldn't find the words.
Shreds of sentence fragments tasted bitter
& I washed them down with another
glass o
Conversations with an old poetHe is grey-whiskered furniture, a pub fixture;
akin to the ashtrays and rickety seats
frequently occupied by bickering students.
'What is poetry?' they asked him one inebriated evening.
+++
He thinks back to some long, hazy hour
when a glass of bourbon sought its six brothers
and a vast expanse of blank paper confronted him.
'There is purity here,' he mused,
'it would be barbaric to taint this beauty
with crude splotches and scribbles of ink.
Far better to leave it clean.'
The bourbon gave him a clarity of thought:
the unmarked parchment was perfection,
a masterpiece of condensed meaning;
a post-modern wet-dream of unfettered potential.
+++
'What is poetry?'
He emptied a thoughtful pint
and then, with reverence, placed before them
a pristine page from his notebook.
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Blue Nuns in a Barren LandThe work of God,
they say the word of God,
is the finger of a mountain crushing
an evergreen forest, as a thumb put-places
the page; a bookmark made of eternity that forms the Now.
And if you disagree, as some authoritarian would,
place your page upfront, with all its words,
and let them choir as all choirboys do
before the unpleased crowd
of Me and You.
The shades will grow, we both should know,
for all deliberate things do so.
The grass will feeble by the wind,
so the wrath of His nose maketh it low.
And in the midst of crowing fiends
where Gehenna's gape is wide and grim
a blue trail 'll form of heads held high -
the taciturnly nuns will glide by.
No man is right
prior ere of deeds,
but he who dares to
cross the river Styx by rowing
naked with no fear of remorse in his heart.
That is the man which Zeus feared most,
that which Thor-thunder's arched before
and grounded at the forest deep,
where evergreens grow wild
and proud before the mountain.
The boughs stretch ad infinitum
in such
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Mature Content
Give and GiveJackson3 walked home from the factory in knee deep snow, although the snow bothered him about as much as the sun did in the summer, which was not at all. The water couldn't penetrate his joints, and a thin layer of laser warmed air kept the moisture away from his lenses. He dragged his boots as he walked, using his heavy angular feet to clear as wide a path on the walkways as possible for the people who might travel there after him. Most people weren't weatherproof.
As he passed by the scaffolding where the workers were refacing the old Drake, he stopped, unclipped his carry-all and fished inside.
"Hey Jacks. Some crazy snow. How's the factory today?" The voice preceded the middle aged man from the shadows, and Jackson3 waited as he carefully unfolded himself from the cardboard and tarpaulin shelter he kept tucked out of the wind.
"Snow is snow Peter, it has neither life nor intellectual capacity, so therefore it cannot be crazy." Jackson3 watched as the man shook his head. "The factor
Mature Content
Mature Content
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September Cat HaikuA purring cat
tramples across my keyb
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Beast of BurdenThere, the wind she feels is driven by
creatures bounding across a universe, tapping gently her neck.
She sings an aching chorus composed in fear
she sings, she sings endless verse to each.
O' come here hare or horse, o' come here bird and bear
nest and trample upon my golden hair.
Bloody my brow; bruise deep my skin
poke my eyes with berry bush stem.
Here, crown my flesh caked tangles with hoof and feather.
Now, with your ears focused on solemn melody; can your eyes see only darkness?
Mock her with growls and squawks.
Use your claws and talons to end her lyric
and compose a natural song in her honor, for she like you is long since dead.
This, TooI point to the hair on my knuckle
and you say, “yes, this, too, I love.”
It is longer than the year before, curling
a little farther from my body. I say so
and you say, "I know."
I pull it out to two options: am I angry
that you saw my body betraying youth,
that first little slide, and did not tell me?
Or, do I pat your rounding belly and say,
“yes, this, too, I love.”
Living the Everyday Haiku
1
climbing the first vertical
it comes to—
a snail on my shoe
2
leaves falling everywhere
I look, how easy it is
to let them go
3
I marvel at every
rose bush petal
holding fast in the wind
4
seed packets in a drawer—
dormant dreams of an herbal garden
come spring
5
sharp-edged clouds
cutting the moon in half
but not the piercing wind
6
still in bed—
winter scrubbing the remains
of autumn from the trees
7 (seen on local news today)
king tides—
waves scattering cliff side
spectators with sea foam and awe
8
how cold the night—
no sound of cricket or bird
yet his breath in slumber
9
late morning
pulling taut the bed sheet,
outline of my tortoiseshell comb
10
lace curtain patterns
from a kitchen breeze
fill the empty fruit bowl
11
chopping winter vegetables
for stew—
my thoughts of summer plums
12
reflection of my rouged lips
on the window sill
through a water glass
13
jelly-making day—
pomegranate halves, red
on half-read newspaper
14
freeze
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