Nester & Grabill – Nov.13

Robbi Nester and Vin Grabill traded art and words. Vin shared this painting, “Cuitzeo V,” with Robbi:

In response, Robbi wrote this poem:

Reading the Signs

I am a noir detective
again behind the wheel,
looking for trouble.
For once, It isn’t raining or dark.
No silvery black and white,
no streetlamps miming the distant moon
or illegible scrawls of neon,
but a world of primary colors,
though a sky full of cartoon
clouds casts strange shadows
on the empty street, a celluloid
strip lined with identical buildings.
The light is wrong,
One side mirrors the other,
and the drunk street lurches
directly into my path.
But I don’t worry.
The sky sends its signals
only to me: A man with a gun—
or perhaps It is only an umbrella—
fires a blank of cloud.

* * * * *

Robbi shared this poem with Vin:

The World to Come

Under the ground, the seventeen-year locusts wait.
Their oversized eyes take in everything
although there is little to see
until the loud burst into daylight
when they rise from the ground
like seraphim, their jointed legs
twitching a jig to the pleasure of movement.
Thick as thumbs, each one launches
its body into the improbable air, where
they meet one another for the first and last time.
Their day of earthly pleasures done,
they shed this life like a suit,
leaving only dry husks behind.

Vin responded with this short video, “Cicada Songs II” (click image to view video):

Cicada Songs 2 from Vin Grabill on Vimeo.