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We shall have to remove everything that strangles artistic and scientific creativeness.

quote by Alexander Dubcek
Added by Lucian Velea
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When You Pick the Ticks Off Monkeys

Your love for monkeys,
Leaves a lump right here...
In my throat!

And I get so emotional,
When you swing from branch to tree branch...
On a vine,
Swinging...
Like one who has swung on a rope!

And when you pick ticks...
From another monkey's fur?
I get teary eyed...
Just watching what occurs!

When you pick the ticks off monkeys,
You remove the itch.
When you pick the ticks off monkeys,
You remove the itch.
When you pick the ticks off monkeys,
You remove the itch.
You remove the itch.
You remove that itch.

Ooo ooo ooo ooo ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh,
You remove the itch.
Ooo ooo ooo ooo ahhh ahhh ahhh,
You remove the itch.
Ooo ooo ooo ooo ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh,
You remove the itch.
You remove the itch.
You remove that itch.

When you pick the ticks off monkeys,
You remove the itch.
When you pick the ticks off monkeys,
You remove the itch.
When you pick the ticks off monkeys,
You remove the itch.
You remove the itch.
You remove that itch.

Your love for monkeys,
Leaves a lump right here...
In my throat!

And I get so emotional,
When you swing from branch to tree branch...
On a vine,
Swinging...

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Washed Away Under Work Loads

artists feel frustrated
when achieving not
when producing art not
not realizing images
in shifting vision mind

artists should
be producing art
no time for cooking
no time for cleaning
no time for hair cut

artists should not
not be able to keep up
with fermenting ideas
rain weather changes
haunting wake up calls

not creating art
is wasting artistic souls
is wasting artistic lives
in dry season droughts
withering artistic minds

work income human activities
life necessity farming for wages
dependent on salary climates
fifty sixty wage slave hours
is change devastating for artists

this drought no time for artistic activities
is crop failure starvation of artistic minds
leading to artistic suffering on massive scales
droughts are caused by lack of fertility rains
extended over long periods of wage slave times

slight brief rains slight artistic showers
is normality artistic not enough spring rains
to ground absorb artistic evaporated minds
artist is dehydrated lacking soul rejuvenations
plants animals need sustaining life waters

artists need self generated creativity waters
least art dies death of artistic dehydrations
art is main ingredient in artistic food chains
plants die from lack of water therefore animals
eating these plants will also die in drought cycles

artists true artists deprived of art wither drought dies
in mind soul lacking artistic flowering rejuvenations

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Artistic

Artistic
It's artistic
Grace in your movement
Is artistic.

Artistic
It's artistic
Sweetness in your voice
Is artistic.

Artistic
It's artistic
Gleam in your eye
Is artistic.

I'm filled with inspiration
In my dormant artistic pursuit...

With brush in hand
I'll paint your every move

With hidden treasure of words
I'll weave poems of what you say

And I'll move as you command
By the gleam of your eye.

poem by Tirupathi Chandrupatla
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Diminishing Defenses

Let's remove the platitudes.
And rid the phony subtleties,
To dropp to be who we are...
To let that be seen,
Moving forward to do more progressive things.

You offend. I offend.
Let us diminish the fences.
Diminishing defenses.
Let's remove the platitudes,
I defend. You defend.
Let us diminish the fences.
Diminishing defenses.

Let's remove the platitudes.
You offend. I offend.
Let us diminish the fences.
And let's do it to prove,
It done,
To do.
Diminishing defenses.
Down with the fences.

You offend. I offend.
Let us diminish the fences.
Diminishing defenses.
Let's remove the platitudes,
I defend. You defend.
Let us diminish the fences.
Diminishing defenses.

Let us remove those platitudes
Diminishing defenses.
Down with the fences.

Let us remove those platitudes
Diminishing defenses.
Down with the fences.

Let us remove those platitudes.
Diminishing defenses.
Down with the fences.
Diminishing defenses.
Let us remove those platitudes.
Let us remove those platitudes.
Diminishing defenses.
Down with the fences.
Diminishing defenses.
Down with the fences.
Diminishing defenses.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Live As If You're Getting What It Is

Remove the 'maybe'
From the things you need.

Remove the 'maybe'
From dreams you want to see.

Remove the heartache,
From those setbacks.
Keep on trying.
Your wishes with those wants,
Will someday end that teasing.

Remove the 'maybe'
From hope and faith.
Do whatever that hardwork takes.
Remove the sadness from your smile.
And live as if you're getting what it is...
And it's tasty!

Remove the 'maybe'
From the things you need.

Remove the 'maybe'
From dreams you want to see.

Remove the heartache,
From those setbacks.
And live as if you're getting what it is...
And it's tasty!

Spiced the way you like it,
And tasty!

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Origin Of The Universe -ten Questions Answered

1.How did the UNIVERSE originate?

It was from the bang, bang and the bang,
It was through the big bang
And you know it for certain.

Yes, the universe originated through the Big Bang.

2.What was the Big Bang?

An explosion of a particle was it
And the particle was smaller than an atom.
It was first explosion for our cause.

Yes, it was a causeless act of explosion of a small particle that resulted in the evolution of an ever expanding universe. Before the Big Bang the universe was smaller than an atom! There was only a point of time then and not a place! The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that describes the early development of the Universe.According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly.

3.What followed the act of expansion of the universe?

Then began the expansion,
An expansion that is still going on
And then and thus began the life of our universe.

The rapid expansion caused the Universe to cool and resulted in its present continuously expanding state. According to the most recent measurements and observations, the Big Bang occurred approximately 13.75 billion years ago, which is thus considered the age of the Universe.

4.What happened in the next stage?

There came the phases of energy
And the wonder of electrons, protons and neutrons.
We learnt about from the sweet mouth of our teacher first.

After its initial expansion from a singularity, the Universe cooled sufficiently to allow energy to be converted into various subatomic particles, including protons, neutrons, and electrons.While protons and neutrons combined to form the first atomic nuclei only a few minutes after the Big Bang, it would take thousands of years for electrons to combine with them and create electrically neutral atoms.The first element produced was hydrogen, along with traces of helium and lithium. Giant clouds of these primordial elements would coalesce through gravity to form stars and galaxies, and the heavier elements would be synthesized either within stars orduring supernovae.

5.What is the scientific theory/relevance of the Big Bang?

Truth is that matters much to us
And the core ideas have to lead us.
Or else we might go back to life darker still.

The Big Bang is a well-tested scientific theory and is widely accepted within the scientific community. It offers a comprehensive explanation for a broad range of observed phenomena. Since its conception, abundant evidence has been uncovered in support of the model. The core ideas of the Big Bang—the expansion, the early hot state, the formation of helium, and the formation of galaxies—are derived from many observations that are independent from any cosmological model; these include the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background, large scale structure, and the Hubble diagram for Type I - a supernovae.

6.What will be the phases of the expansion of the universe?

An ever expanding mystery it is
Closer it was then and now it will be farther and farther.
And once begun it can`t go back ever.

As the distance between galaxy clusters is increasing today, it can be inferred that everything was closer together in the past. This idea has been considered in detail back in time to extreme densities and temperatures, and large particle accelerators have been built to experiment in such conditions, resulting in further development of the model. On the other hand, these accelerators have limited capabilities to probe into such high energy regimes.

7.Does the Big Bang theory explain everything?

[...] Read more

poem by M.d Dinesh Nair
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Accelerate It...And, Go!

Heated with a trivial steaming,
Choking up your motor on!
Sitting with your feelings overloading,
With your motor on!
Accelerate and go.
Roll down your windows,
And...
Let the air remove the fool in you.

Heated with a trivial steaming,
Choking up your motor on!
Sitting with your feelings overloading,
With your motor on!
Accelerate and go.
Roll down your windows,
And...
Let the air remove the fool in you.

Accelerate and go.
Roll down your windows,
And...
Let the air remove the fool in you.
Roll down your windows,
And...
Let the air remove the fool in you.

Heated with a trivial steaming,
Choking up your motor on!
Sitting with your feelings overloading,
With your motor on!
Roll down your windows,
And...
Let the air remove the fool in you.
Accelerate and go.
Roll down your windows,
And...
Let the air remove the fool in you.
Accelerate it...
And, go!

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Johnson’s Antidote

Down along the Snakebite River, where the overlanders camp,
Where the serpents are in millions, all of the most deadly stamp;
Where the station-cook in terror, nearly every time he bakes,
Mixes up among the doughboys half-a-dozen poison-snakes:
Where the wily free-selector walks in armour-plated pants,
And defies the stings of scorpions, and the bites of bull-dog ants:
Where the adder and the viper tear each other by the throat,—
There it was that William Johnson sought his snake-bite antidote.
Johnson was a free-selector, and his brain went rather queer,
For the constant sight of serpents filled him with a deadly fear;
So he tramped his free-selection, morning, afternoon, and night,
Seeking for some great specific that would cure the serpent’s bite.
Till King Billy, of the Mooki, chieftain of the flour-bag head,
Told him, “Spos’n snake bite pfeller, pfeller mostly drop down dead;
Spos’n snake bite old goanna, then you watch a while you see,
Old goanna cure himself with eating little pfeller tree.”
“That’s the cure,” said William Johnson, “point me out this plant sublime,”
But King Billy, feeling lazy, said he’d go another time.
Thus it came to pass that Johnson, having got the tale by rote,
Followed every stray goanna, seeking for the antidote.

. . . . .
Loafing once beside the river, while he thought his heart would break,
There he saw a big goanna fighting with a tiger-snake,
In and out they rolled and wriggled, bit each other, heart and soul,
Till the valiant old goanna swallowed his opponent whole.
Breathless, Johnson sat and watched him, saw him struggle up the bank,
Saw him nibbling at the branches of some bushes, green and rank;
Saw him, happy and contented, lick his lips, as off he crept,
While the bulging in his stomach showed where his opponent slept.
Then a cheer of exultation burst aloud from Johnson’s throat;
“Luck at last,” said he, “I’ve struck it! ’tis the famous antidote.

“Here it is, the Grand Elixir, greatest blessing ever known,—
Twenty thousand men in India die each year of snakes alone.
Think of all the foreign nations, negro, chow, and blackamoor,
Saved from sudden expiration, by my wondrous snakebite cure.
It will bring me fame and fortune! In the happy days to be,
Men of every clime and nation will be round to gaze on me—
Scientific men in thousands, men of mark and men of note,
Rushing down the Mooki River, after Johnson’s antidote.
It will cure delirium tremens, when the patient’s eyeballs stare
At imaginary spiders, snakes which really are not there.
When he thinks he sees them wriggle, when he thinks he sees them bloat,
It will cure him just to think of Johnson’s Snakebite Antidote.”

Then he rushed to the museum, found a scientific man—
“Trot me out a deadly serpent, just the deadliest you can;
I intend to let him bite me, all the risk I will endure,

[...] Read more

poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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A Child-Murderer

The man who strangles babies
Looks just like me or you,
But organises Sunday outings
To the Chocolate Factories of Death.
No nipples in the bud for him,
But a sudden avalanche in the glasshouse of his brain
Destroys sweet children:
Slender virgins weep at the blond arithmetic of violence.
Where, you may ask, is God's mercy?
Say your prayers -
The man who strangles babies does not know.

poem by John Thorkild Ellison
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Remove This Doubt

Its hurting me
Its hurting me
This doubt is hurting me
So remove this doubt
From my heart little girl
And let me live my life
Knowing you care
Remove this doubt
From my mind little girl
And let me breathe again
Feeling my love is shared
Each time we meet
You make me feel so incomplete
Theres no joy in the air
I just dont think you care
Close the door
On doubt forever
And may it nevermore
Make me unsure
Turn the key
And lock away this doubt in me
Keep it in the dark
Not in my heart
Be more tender
Completely surrender
Your love to me
Is sweet and not discrete
Remove this doubt
From my heart little girl
And let me live my life
Knowing you care
Remove this doubt
From my mind little girl
And let me breathe again
Knowing my love is shared
Each time we meet
You make me feel so incomplete
Theres no joy in the air
I just dont think you care
Remove this doubt from my heart (6x)

song performed by Elvis Costello
Added by Lucian Velea
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Love is something that you cannot remove (Catena Rondo)

Love is something that you cannot remove
quite suddenly you know, she knows it too
it is in everything that you say and do,
love is something that you cannot remove

quite suddenly you know, she knows it too,
it is the very quaintest kind of thing
that to you both is suddenly happening
quite suddenly you know, she knows it too,

it is the very quaintest kind of thing
when sense and sensibility brings
to your actions, thoughts and your feelings wings
it is the very quaintest kind of thing

when sense and sensibility brings
a secret understanding that is true,
sincerity that encompass both of you
when sense and sensibility brings

a secret understanding that is true,
when a look carries a message to both
that goes much further than any oath
a secret understanding that is true,

when a look carries a message to both
when the body reacts to a single touch
when pre-comprehension says very much
when a look carries a message to both

when the body reacts to a single touch
when life seems so much greater than it is,
when mere company is full of much bliss
when the body reacts to a single touch,

when life seems so much greater than it is,
when a bond develops around the divine,
selfless you loose the own me and mine
when life seems so much greater than it is,

when a bond develops around the divine
where although separate, you become one,
without each other hardly want to live on
when a bond develops around the divine

where although separate, you become one;
love is something that you cannot remove,
to each other you do not have to prove
where although separate, you become one,

[...] Read more

poem by Gert Strydom
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Magic

Magic,
Can attract.
To...
Keep one mesmerized,
All their lives.
And...
Without a fantasizing it,
To...
Hynotize for somebody's,
Benefit.

Magic...
Will attract.
And...
Keep one seeking to stay hook,
As if it was a drug to eat and cook.

A magic!
Whether black or white,
Is a magic...
To not be denied,
As magic...
From another place.
Removing everything taken once for granted.

It's magic!
Whether black or white,
Is a magic...
To not be denied,
As magic...
From another place.
Removing everything one took for granted.

It's magic,
From another place.
Removing everything taken once for granted.
It's magic!
Whether black or white,
And removing everything to clear one's eyes.

Magic...
Will attract,
A magic!
Whether black or white,
Is a magic...
To not be denied,
As magic...
From places unseen.
And removing false things people claim to dream.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Remove These Obstacles

Remove these obstacles,
I have now on my path.
I wish to attract happiness...
With a peace of mind,
Coming to find me at last!

I refuse to submit,
To disappointments and hardships.
That past I dismiss with a resistance to conflicts.
And detailed to welcome that,
As a fact of life made for me legit!

Remove I will burdens carried on my back!
I am choosing not to identify,
Confrontations on my path...
I must endure all my life!

I refuse to submit,
To disappointments and hardships.
That past I once lived,
I now dismiss!
Remove these obstacles,
From my mind.
Where I've encouraged their nourishment,
And given them reason to exist!

Remove these obstacles!
Remove them...
I insist!

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Kitsch Object

Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
If your luck is dying, go and plant a tree
With artistic license, always comes for free
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
Snook your way backstage
Paris sets the rage
Coursing on your brain
So now I slip away
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
If your luck is dying, go and plant a tree
With artistic license, always comes for free
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
Weightless.. bare.. faithless... scared
Know that bitches face? ?
All seen better days
So quick to blow your fuse
But thats the life you choose
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
If your luck is dying, go and plant a tree
With artistic license, always comes for free
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
Weightless.. bare.. faithless... scared
Snook yourself backstage
Paris sets the rage
Coursing on your brain
So now I slip away
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
If your luck is dying now, go and plant a tree
With poetic license, always comes for free
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
Weightless.. bare.. faithless... scared

song performed by Placebo
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Kitsch Object (live)

Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
If your luck is dying, go and plant a tree
With artistic license, always comes for free
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
Snook your way backstage
Paris sets the rage
coursing on your brain
so now I slip away
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
If your luck is dying, go and plant a tree
With artistic license, always comes for free
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
Weightless.. Bare.. Faithless... Scared
Know that bitches face??
All seen better days
So quick to blow your fuse
But that's the life you choose
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
If your luck is dying, go and plant a tree
With artistic license, always comes for free
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
Weightless.. Bare.. Faithless... Scared
Snook yourself backstage
Paris sets the rage
coursing on your brain
so now I slip away
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
If your luck is dying now, go and plant a tree
With poetic license, always comes for free
Just like every lichen, how you stick to me
Weightless.. Bare.. Faithless... Scared
[Posted by Erez

song performed by Placebo
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Artistic Consummations Unending

Man when it comes to romance
commitment to long term courtship
speak not of rocking artistic me;
and my constant consistent courtship
with my dated loose laying poetry.

In more than twenty
predominantly neglected years
I’ve never been through them all;
caught up with my neglected years
my dated draft diary entries.

I’ve got so many
loose lines lines lines
hanging heavy in my restless head;
I can never get them lines
all laid down right.

There’s too many
to save, for, a rainy day.
Multiple droplets; in their hundreds trillions;
adorn, all objects; visible on rainy days.
Hang from, transformed, rain dewed trees.

But even when the sun is still shining.
I’m still two timing, multiple poetic pieces.
I’m still too time starved; for catch up poetic binding.
I’m afraid I’m never, going to get written pieces,
through; to that last eternally unwritten line.

Hanging out waiting around for me
in expectation, of artistically, desired pick up.
When will such a courtship; finally end?
When the muse may, no longer, dances up,
her dazzling; or simplistic lines entwining me.

When I’m too tired to write my nights
my days, my artistic life, poetically away.
Then poetry will find; another poet to daze;
for days, for nights; to artistic life write away.
Then poetry will find, another poet, to courtship bard.

Copyright © Terence George Craddock
Written in July 1999 on the 17.7.99.

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Creative Soul Quite Out Of Sorts

creative soul quite out of sorts
are you really source defined
by what you have done?
remembered by what you have written?

does not forest, lakes, rivers,
windswept beaches, ocean tides,
ebb flow in kiwi artistic souls?

do you not hunger starve feel
beginnings are glory dawn chorus
with an eternal day sun bean streams
birth begging come write me?

past writes be they haka or poi songs
lilting lullaby soft night whispered blessings
stretching dark far back to jaw thigh bones
stretch dark far back to ancestor jaw thigh bones

ancestor blessings running sleeping
dream running in waking
eye infant sleep listening...
eye infant ancient sleep listening...

artistic walking time lines
artistic walking seed own time lines
hooks fishing catch spirit minds...
wear colour cloak rainbow bird feathers...

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Walking Seed Own Time Lines

creative soul quite out of sorts
are you really source defined
by what you past have done?
remembered by what you have written?

does not forest, lakes, rivers,
windswept beaches, ocean tides,
ebb flow in kiwi artistic souls?

do you not hunger starve feel
beginnings are glory dawn chorus
with an eternal day sun bean streams
birth begging come write me?

past writes be they haka or poi songs
lilting lullaby soft night whispered blessings
stretching dark far back to jaw thigh bones
stretch dark far back to ancestor jaw thigh bones

ancestor blessings running sleeping
dream running in waking
eye infant sleep listening...
eye infant ancient sleep listening...

artistic walking time lines
artistic walking seed own time lines
hooks fishing catch spirit minds
wear colour cloak rainbow bird feathers...

to be an artist and deny art
is to deny self decades
may be devoted invested

into deep wound near fever social causes
delving into tunnels lighting candles
holding lamps high warming other hands

but art denied crucifies poetic souls
song of self is wine sung trodden in life caverns
art is not mainstream commercials remix copycat dance routines

gaga sales pitch rip offs
never climb stairways
to heaven sung unique songs

are tuned in distempered souls
mānuka honey is kiwi wild
wind clover flax fibre twist plait knot

ropes pull waka

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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My Artistic Intent

My artistic intent kept me up all night without relent,

I wanted to paint you a monet or a turner

But art was never my strong point

And being a slow learner

I painted a tiny flower instead

My artistic intent drew me to a small corner cafe

With a seat for one

Even after a sleepingless night

This stubborn muse wasn't done

Instead half dead I sat for hours

With a noteook and pen

Re writing the same sentence

Over and over again

I told the waitress it was my first draft

Her english was poor and so closing the door

She laughed, ''Do you feel warmer now? '

At closing time I left two sentences better off

Than before!

My artistic intent fired me on without relent

I wanted to compose an epic or

A poem of some great worth

But after a certain hour I lost the power

Forgot to feed the metre and in the dark

Couldn't complete her!

At dawn

[...] Read more

poem by Yvette Smith
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Joseph's Gloss On God

When Joseph tells his brothers: “I
am not God, ” he perhaps implies
that unlike God he sometimes lies,
and unlike Him, is doomed to die.

The words that Joseph never said
are wrong, as we find out when burned;
God often lies, a lesson learned
from history, and God is dead.

Inspired by a review by Paul Buhle of R. Crumb’s The Whole Book of Genesis, in Forward, October 10,2009 (“In the Image of God: The Ambition of R. Crumb’s Graphic Genesis”:

To say this book is a remarkable volume or even a landmark volume in comic art is somewhat of an understatement. It doesn’t hurt that excerpts of the book appeared during the summer in the New Yorker and that the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles is opening an exhibit of the original drawings from which the book’s contents were adapted. “The Book of Genesis, ” Robert Crumb’s version, nevertheless stands on its own as one of this century’s most ambitious artistic adaptations of the West’s oldest continuously told story.
No comic artist has been more influential than Crumb. In terms of sales, his work is dwarfed by the superheroes and, in comic art prestige. Art Spiegelman, and a short list of others including Alison Bechdel and Marjane Sartrapi may have displaced Crumb. But Crumb’s influence abides and endures in his occasional LP/CD covers, in his volumes of collected work (16 volumes so far and counting) , his artistic prizes and a generation of artists who have incorporated his particular view of humanity.
Surprisingly, his best work in 20 years has actually been in the genre of adaptation, specifically an adaptation of Franz Kafka, dating to the mid 1990s. On that highly curious point, any consideration of this “Genesis, ” as a highly personal comic art, properly begins. Notoriously, Crumb is a gentile who fled from his deeply dysfunctional Delaware family to the Cleveland neighborhood of Harvey Pekar and the arms of the first of two Jewish wives. “Crumb, ” the 1994 film documentary, was in many ways about emotional pain (including a brother doomed to suicide) and his craving for a certain kind of woman, who, although possibly any female with a bemuscled backside, was in fact most likely to be Jewish. She, reality and image, was his consolation. The strips that he drew of Jewish-American life, nevertheless, reworked stereotypes, some funny (he visits Florida with his second wife, and holds a tiny grandfather on his knee) , and some, doubtless, insulting to many readers.
In the pages of “Introducing Kafka, ” Crumb became his fictional protagonist with such depth of insight into the logic of the doomed writer, as well as of Kafka’s famed works, that many readers were simply astonished, this reviewer among them. Kafka is the exemplar par excellence of a type of ambiguous, tortured mittel European Jewish personality as it hovered between faith and uncertainty, shortly before the Holocaust. Not Spiegelman, not Ben Katchor, nor Sharon Rudahl, nor others who drew historical or quasi-historical strips about Jewish history, had taken the characterization as far as Crumb. An earlier escape from Middle American culture had propelled Crumb toward his satirical protagonist Mister Natural, a Zen-like, robed quasi-prophet of the 1970s-80s. Three decades later, Crumb’s robed prophets are far from Zen.
Crumb’s “Genesis” is then perfectly serious and the author wants us to know it. As he says on the cover, “Nothing Left Out! ” Every “beget” from the King James Bible can be found here, along with plenty of scenes censored from previous graphic adaptations. And more prose, in the final “Commentary” segment of the book, than non-writer Crumb may have put on the page anywhere, aside from his published letters. More striking for anyone but the seasoned Crumb fan: unlike previous Biblical comic adaptations, including some published and drawn by Jews, Crumb’s characters actually look Jewish, the women even more than the men. The contrast to the classic work, EC Comics’ “Picture Stories from the Bible” (1945) in that respect is most illuminating. But more recent works like the best-selling “Manga Bible” (2000) are not much different (nor was the “The Wolverton Bible” by one of the strangest of comic artists Basil Wolverton) . Close readers will see Crumb’s wife Aline Kominsky, to whom the book is dedicated, again and again, in various guises; perhaps only Chagall drew his beloved wife so often and with such varied imagination.
Not only are the characters Jewish here, they are all ages and sizes. If, for instance, there are more drawings of Jewish elders in any single volume of comic art anywhere, I have never seen them. The women here are beautiful when young, heavily busted with large, muscular thighs. The men are strong, their beards full and noble. The deity has a really big beard and retains his notoriously bad temper, as well as his commanding presence, and absolute demand for loyalty. The animals of Genesis (in Noah’s ark and elsewhere) may be where Crumb is most similar to earlier comic art adaptations of Biblical texts, but they are drawn, like everything else, with such loving care that they are special and demand repeated viewing.
In those extensive notes at the end, Crumb comes as close as he is ever likely to revealing the sources and depth of his commitment to the text. He had been puzzling, no doubt under a wave of feminist criticism, about the gender struggle, until Torah scholar Savina Teubel’s “Sarah the Priestess” (1984) gave him new insight: a matriarchal background, female deities and actual female power, in a society turning toward patriarchy but retaining some elements of women’s prehistorical strength and centrality to the direction of early civilization. If anything is reinterpreted purposefully in “Genesis, ” it is in gender, and Crumb does so not by scoring points but by rearranging the visual subtext. Gender issues also help him reframe somewhat the class dimension of tribal society, which endures not through brute force but because of the strength of its women.
The commentary on his visual choices and his broader interpretations explores and explains his few intentional deviations, not only in the name of narrative clarity but artistic intent. Mainly, his notes drive home how he struggled to interpret the text in suitable graphic form, chapter by chapter, sometimes even character by character. There is no doubting the artist’s integrity or hard work, in no small part because he redrew again and again, trying to find historically accurate clothing and scenery. The Old Testament of cinematic Charlton Heston, so to speak, became the Genesis of lived and perceived experience, socially real and super-real. Clues are provided with translations of specific Hebrew names within the visual text, essentially metaphorical in meaning. These clues may be the closest to footnotes that Crumb has ever provided.
Comics scholar Jeet Heer, has noted in “Bookforum” that Crumb’s biblical characters, with the exception of the deity, have no internal lives: only the deity has depth and personality. As with the original text, much more is implied in Crumb’s visual text than can be stated, because scenes rush by so fast and because the artist forever works out, pen or brush in hand, a unique meaning that escapes easy interpretation. Even closer to the mark, Heer argues that above all, this is a book about bodies, the natural expression of an artist whose work has, possibly more than any other master of comic art, been concerned with body structure and expression.
And offending the deity? Crumb treads with a caution all the more remarkable for an artist, who, short decades ago, allowed himself the full run of his imagination, heedless of the consequences. Crumb’s innovation might be summed up in his characterization of Joseph, brilliant in subjugating Egypt but weary of his own powers. In the final phrases of the book, the artist suggests a radical view several thousand years previous to Jewish Karl Marx. “In the very last chapter, when his obstreperous brothers fling themselves at this feet and proclaim, ‘Here we are, your slaves, ’ he says to them, “I am not God, am I’ Joseph has learned a much finer humility than the fear-driven kind shown by his barbaric brothers.” So says a humble Crumb.

10/22/09

poem by Gershon Hepner
Added by Poetry Lover
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