flooding with clowns

This is one of the books I've made recently. Here's a top view of it.












Here's a side view.














I wrote a poem to include in the book. The poem is "flooding with clowns." The title came from an experience with a story a friend of mine told me. The following pics are of the inside of the book.








flooding with clowns (the text)

silence is compliance
forgetting is protection
winding
winding
winded
wounded
internally grateful:
forget-no-mores can be painful & healing
locked in the bedroom closet close to dinner time
but dining on that green vegetable with the boy’s name doesn’t appeal
the only place for alone time

place & time & time & place
put that into another place
place it in another time

it’s all the same eventually
memories get caught up & caught up again

the narrator is elusive
the protagonist changes in each scene
patterns are patterns in green
patterns are patterns in orange
patterns are patterns in lavender spots

look through the keyhole
when he thinks no one is watching
happiness comes with a bundle of compromise
but only through the keyhole
when no one is watching

the face gets larger & larger & larger &
it haunts dreams & wakefulness
the face gets smaller in a POP!
an implosion of thought & contradiction
an inevitable fancy
like a clock or a hippopotamus yawning
warnings come in big & small letters
hunting & haunting till they are read

the face gets larger & larger & larger again
an explosion of thought & completion
undeniably
it’s a cross between a clothes pin & a planter
warnings come & go & go & come
till they are

warnings are big & small voices
that are heard & not heard
heard & herded
till they are

the lessons are terminal
awareness is intrepid
skating between
what is heard, seen, & known
eventually, it all dries up

a long-term bout with
construction-workers in white collars
reality is managed through tiny lenses
that suggest severe myopia
congratulations are in order on a new design

the only way out sometimes is to get outside the box
step in the sun (or rain)
until you can feel it on your skin—
your nose, your hands, your forehead—
the face gets larger & larger

laugh & walk away
that’s how it’s done in yoga

written by: Tracey M. Gagne

Update

I know I said that I'd be sharing what I've been doing on here, and there hasn't been an update in more than a week.

Here's what I've been doing:

1. I made a bracelet and ring set. It's kinda cool, because both the bracelet and the ring can hold a small picture (well the bracelet can hold five or so). I made this for a gift, but I've not figured out who to give it to or what pictures to slide in. More fun to come with this! I'll post pics once I've finished the pieces off and taken pics!

2. I wrote a poem called "flooding with clowns" and am currently gluing it into a book I made several weeks ago. So far, it looks pretty cool, but it isn't finished.

3. I've written quite a few poems for my chap _resipiscent_- which will be out in October. I have only eight more poems for that collection.

4. I've made three books, too, in an attemtpt to get comfortable with different ways of binding books. I made one softcover whose binding I sewed, and two hardcovers. I'm having SO much fun with this!

I've been busy otherwise, trying to ready myself for the start of another school semester, too--reading, preparing a syllabus, etc. All good stuff! As the weather begins to think about getting cooler (because let's face it, it isn't really cooler in Atlanta), I'm beginning to think about knitting projects-- finishing the sweater for the baby that I started in the Spring and some other fun activities.

I've got lots of great ideas! I'm hoping to get some pics up here, soon! Keep posted!

Tracey