Sulzenko & Grabill — November 2024

Vin Grabill and JC Sulzenko traded art and words. Vin shared this image, titled “Idea,” with JC:

In response, JC wrote this poem:

Geometrics for beginners

Time collapses upon itself
while the universe eddies                 
toward its own destruction.

From a place of refuge, of reflection, 
you wait and watch the wash—
Aegean azure, Caribbean turquoise, coral rose.

You watch time—rough, stippled 
as Italian stucco—forge landscapes into boxes, 
hard-edged, without keys.

You see frail hope, vein-like,
blue as octopus blood, curve and connect
one lockbox to the other,

offering a sinewy lifeline to the mind,  
the heart—together they bear the weight
of thought, fear, and love.

Will and dread race each other along its length 
like a current, as passion and heat fuse
in the flux, flood, flow of desire.

* * * * *

JC shared this poem with Vin:

Do-si-do

Behind the palisade next door—
high cedar planks and a locked gate—
a woman promenades through primroses 
Ghost beauty haunts her eyes
Cloud-white hair, swept up, frames her face

She holds her head high as a princess
from an ancient regime
who wears only silks in shades of aquamarine
She once pitched her canvasses in drawing rooms 
With brush and palette, caught her subjects lives 
between the lines of their skin

Now her paintings lounge along corridors 
like a chorus line in the wings 
She uses an umbrella to walk 
Pokes people with it for attention
Giggles and asks if she’s lost her teeth—
they’re loose but still there
She’s outrageous ‘friends’ whisper behind her back 

I back away from their disdain
Remember her lovely, commanding an audience
When I next see her, she smiles
I can’t remember all the names… 
Doesn’t remember mine, a friend of forty years
When she turns her back to me 
as if I wasn’t there, I turn from her
for the first time

In response, Vin made this image, titled “Head Held High”: