Ever wished you were a Super Hero and could save the world, but you can’t, so you’ve all but given up on yourself. Then someone tells you a story about a French tightrope walker who strings a wire between the Twin Tower buildings in New York. As her prepares to step onto the wire, he turns to his loyal companion and says;
“This is impossible – so let’s get started.”
An you string that wire across the gap between your dream and reality – and it forever holds you in your dreaming.
Then you watch a Batman movie, ‘The Dark Knight’, and the Super Hero himself succumbs to the darkness. But it is the wise words of the loyal Butler that serve to resurrect the Bat;
“Master Wayne – we must endure.”
And you slip them into your back pocket.
Poem in building ?
It is the Joker who hides behind powder and paint. Wearing boots too big to move too far and an endless grin that sucks you in. It is the night so black that brings the bat to beat some sense into a head so full it takes on the form of another.
Find in Clunk & Jam book. True story about the French tight rope walker here.
(Clunk & Jam book. All content from book freely available in Black Dog’s blog here.)
Both Clunk & Jam and Wisdoms and Rose books are now available in Fremantle Art Centre’s FOUND online store. FOUND showcases work from a range of local and Western Australian Makers. Very grateful for their warm support. Instagram @fremantleartcentre . Cover art by Stormie Mills.
Rose paste-up in Fremantle Art Centre’s FOUND.
Why didn’t the Black Dog cross the road? Because he wanted to wonder a while at the masses marching in blind faith.
Why didn’t the Black Dog cross the road? Because green’s not always right – and red’s not always wrong.
Why didn’t the Black Dog cross the road? Because he wasn’t ready to go yet.
(See also ‘Good Difference’, ‘Being Different Is No Joke’, ‘Difference Matters‘.
(Clunk & Jam book)
Army of Ink Salute .
It is these inky things that stand me up when I slip up back. Show me forward into places I wouldn’t go all by myself. Write the wrongs through poems and songs. Create picture books of what I can’t tell. Hold me in a silent vigil when I bump and stop. Slow a world too big ad fast into moments precious and still.
It is these inky things that turn the deep end into a puddle I can jump over. Fear into something I can see. Anger into rock the boat defiance (like a wee rabbit thumping its foot). Shift loneliness into along wrapped in a nice warm blanket. Shrink pain to a hurt more my size. Make difference and smallness fell like a snug old fit. Every knock a trip to somewhere new.
And when night arrives … they snuggle beneath my pillow soft like a hidden treat. Riding the rise and fall of a slumbering breath. Catching sweet dreams and soft sounds that awaken a brand new day.
(Reposted from 2010. See also, ‘Peacemakers Plot’, ‘Once Upon A Dark Time‘. All Army of Ink here. In Clunk & Jam book, 2019. Original handwriting by Mags, with a chook feather from Ruth’s farm in Yallingup, Western Australia for handmade book, ‘Rock The Boat’, 2009.)
The Crossing .
One day I will swim out to the seaweed. And I swam for the longest time to know the place where I now rest. But let me not forget to look far back into the distance. Cast the mind before the deep unknown. Feel the fear in every stroke as I made that crossing. As I make it still each day.
(Clunk & Jam book, 2019. Pictured, Hansel & Gretel).
