Eleanor Roosevelt's Dress 
mixed media collage: magazines, paper, text in black pencil, 9.5" x 10"

This actually is Eleanor Roosevelt's dress. The writing in the folds is one of her famous quotes: "You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

Kabuki Flyer
mixed media collage: magazines on inked paper, 9.25" x 7.75"

first publication: Shakespeare's Monkey Revue, Vol 2, Issue 3

Kabuki Flyer is like a commingle of kabuki with anime. She might be a super femme girl warrior zooming off to seek vengeance or else to maintain peace.

Dress Report 

The day after my friend died, 

I bought a dress 

and wore it for him, 

imagining the phone would ring. 

Hello New York, I'd say. 

Hello upper-left-hand-corner, he'd answer. 

I'd gush my progress: 

I bought a dress today 

with hand-size paisley 

blue and white borders that float 

sheer, loose and low-cut. 

I bagged my jeans, 

wore the dress out of the store. 

I felt beautiful, 

unsafe and powerful. 

He'd tell me, A chemise 

with a princess seam, 

and praise my progress, 

Next time wear lipstick. 

By the open window, 

I listened to the wind 

without his voice, 

paisley tears rained 

off the dress. 

Weeks later, in a dream, 

a letter came, opaque shapes 

unreadable until the end: he wrote, 

I like your new dress. 

first published in Naugatuck River Review

Swept Away

photomontage on paper, 8 3/4" x 9 1/2"

Destroyer

mixed media photomontage

An Insomniac's Revenge

I like poodles, purple and pansies,

favor meditation over confrontation, 

faint at the sight of blood. 

Like an alien, 

bottled anger wakes,

bursts out 

and propels me up a desolate peak. 

There I meet my enemies 

whose badness balloons to fit their proper names:

Porn-Brained Gila Monster, 

Lying Tailpipe, Yo-Yo Boobie-Trap, 

Jaundiced Cross-Eyed Guzzler, 

Scorpion in a Suit, 

Pretentious Scummie Thug-Nuts...

My dress, black and sheer as rice paper,

slinks down to the the ground, waving lizard's tails.

The bunch of THEM gawk at my super-woman figure 

back-lit in blazing wrath.

One seductive glance paralyzes,

melds THEM together like mud and strangles

any remnants of humanity. 

Thus I proceed without fear, 

guilt or remorse.

Black lines frown down my ghostly face;

my hair rattles, sticks out venomous tongues.

I ax THEM's limbs into stew.

Their pained cries sound like applause

as black widows creep from my ears.

The blood makes my head spin:

I suck it in.

Pull THEM's heads off.

THEM's eyes remain intact, stare vacantly.

Poke THEM's eyes out 

in a dark release.

I roll over, adjust the pillows

and go back to sleep.

Bird–Woman
collage: magazines, rice papers, poem in black pencil, 8.5" x 11"
(please click on image to enlarge)

Poem written inside skirt and wing:

I am bird-woman
both pretend and real
beak made of lips
claws of feet

words are my wings
when I fly away
my twin hearts beat
more than prescience

first published in Pirene's Fountain

She Rises
photomontage on paper, 7.25" x 6.75"

explanation to him

this creature with a half eggshell head
is not a barren womb, 
she is not empty, not death and not not loving
 
odd things blow together... 
cobwebs and trash in the corner of a room, 
a nest, a torn bit of cloth,
composting peels and rinds,
 

somehow she manages to fly



collage & poem first published in Triggerfish Review

Wing Keeper
photomontage on paper, 11" x 8.5"

Aerial Desire
collage: magazines, papers, ink, white pencil on paper, 11" x 8.5

Silent Rulers

To make a collage 

with right angles 

that fit into a frame 

measure carefully. Sides 

expand and contract 

in hungry 

middles whose mouths 

eat feet. 

Try to count how many 

cross the sky. 

Inches lose 

track of the years 

since you or I 

climbed a tree. 

Paper crumples 

shadow of hand 

over a crooked smile. 

There's only 

a scissor edge 

between us.

first published in Triggerfish Review

Offering
collage: magazines on black paper, 11" x 8.5"

the beach didn't notice us

i fit snug under his shoulder

he combed the sand from my hair

i thought he loved me more than smoke

we wanted to fly to the end

Witness
collage: magazines and black paper, 10" x 8 1/4"

Shadowfly
collage: magazines and black paper

look into the web
collage: magazines and paper (please click for larger version)

first published in Pirene's Fountain

collage: sheet music, magazines, colored paper, 6" x 5"

Retribution

Her brother dared to say

he would marry me. 

She spit on him,

I'm not leaving you a thing!

She hated my pale skin.

Turned out her fortunes 

were sucked empty

by her own lover,

the one man she had trusted.

The night she died,

I dreamed she gave me an egg.

I thought it was hard-boiled;

I was about to peel the shell

and take a bite

when she demanded it back. 

I threw the offering at her.

Years of yellow rage

slopped down her face.

collage & poem first published in Triggerfish Review

I Am Not Guilty

photomontage, 7 3/4" x 8 1/4"

I keep a notebook with quick starts of collages using non-permanent double-stick tape. (I highly recommend this type of visual journaling.) Those hands held the brick wall for a long while until I decided to work on it. The rest came together in that happy accident way. 

Flying Metaphorically: Under the Rooster

collage: magazines, joss paper, metallic watercolor on rice paper on mirror
12" x 12"

Hours of Night
collage: magazines, metallic watercolor
9 1/2" x 9 1/4"

"Hours of the Night" refers to ancient Egyptian mythology, concerning the realm they believed everyone entered during sleep and at death. I imagine she looks back toward her earthly existence. The split Ba-butterfly and small birds might be her soul departing.

Car Nymph

photomontage: magazines, 10.5" x 8.25"

in the wind of a sneeze

collage: magazines, colored pencil, metallic watercolor, screening,
rice papers, 8 1/2" x 8 3/8"


in the wind of a sneeze

i wanted to build a house
the way ants do
hauling crumbs
four times their size
its brick walls would stack neatly

i wanted people inside
but didn't plan on a naked man
and a girl floating
as if to escape

my scissors took over
irregular rectangles fell
bricks sailed
into dizzying alignments
and windows flew away
on the wings of black birds


collage and poem first printed in Mannequin Envy