Why We Love What We Love

In my ongoing archiving and inventory of my work, the pieces to which

I continue to be attached, are the ones I am really clueless about!

I always say the above piece was channeled by a twelve year old boy!

It is cartoonish in both palette and form, and still it speaks to me

more than lots of other more polished work.

This is another one of those! I have rarely had comments on it; it's not so much

ignored as given that "what is it?" stare! And still, I love it. Something apocalyptic 

looking about it, or spacey, not pretty or uplifting in the aesthetic sense, but still

speaking to me in dreanscape vernacular.

"The Old Neighborhood"

This is my latest new love. It recalls the dead wood of memory, 

the graffiti of ragged loss, urban cities in decay, hopscotch, 

neighborhood baseball games in the street, the sweet call to dinner.

Why we love what we love,

more or less misunderstood

or darkly judged, thus

kept close to heart, unspoken.

A painting recalls the doodles

of a boy during History,

another imagines superheroes

saving the day,

and another, a neighborhood

in disarray.

Who knows why

the souvenirs of longing

are the best,

why we are drawn to what is tattered

or outgrown. We love

what we love in secret or broadcast,

we love what we love:

that which stays alive within,
that which breathes a life unknown.