JAPANESE CALLIGRAPHY: SPONTANEITY, SIMPLICITY, SERENITY
By Chris Arning
The main objective of this piece is to introduce the reader to elements of Japanese calligraphy. I make no claim to expert status and readers should look elsewhere for a comprehensive treatment. This is my own, very personal take on Japanese calligraphy. My main contention is that calligraphy is one of the best antidotes to the madness and maladies of 21st century life and that it helps engender a healthy, balanced mind.
Introduction
Calligraphy has been studied for thousands of years. Calligraphy is not merely seen as an exercise in good handwriting, but rather is the foremost art form of East Asia. Good penmanship in China and elsewhere is not just considered an aesthetic hobby of the effete. Calligraphy has been the pursuit of emperors and warriors as well as poets and scribes. It is strongly linked to power and moral authority. In this sense fluidity with the brush is analogous to the value placed on oratory in the West. And whilst our Western calligraphy, with its demand for painstaking replication, tends to suppress or trammel individuality, eastern calligraphy challenges the individual to breathe fresh life into each word and endow them with spirit – so it is seen as a mark of strong, balanced character.
When I was growing up, I used to regard Chinese scripts with a sort of awe. The writing had a haughty cool about it. It was exotic and forbidding, its meaning sealed and locked into a thicket of dense ink. How could such a small entity carry such portentous meaning? There was something sinister, and sensual about it. As if single scrawled word could sentence a man to death or carry him to erotic pleasures.
A Japanese linguist has described the kanji, which gives the essential meaning of each term as the 'anatomy' of a language in miniature. And if you want to take kanji into the operating theatre and dissect it into constituent parts, then calligraphy is the answer. Calligraphy is one of the best access points into Japanese culture. Japanese is a highly visual language and kanji is key to grasping the richness of the language. Kanji literally brings the meaning into Japanese. For those undergoing the joyful purgatory of learning Japanese, calligraphy offers direct benefits. It is an excellent mnemonic drill for learning kanji stroke order. Because one practises a single character countless times, you get to grips with the architecture of the simpler characters; being able to identify radicals gives clues to deciphering more complex compounds.
Truly mastering calligraphy, and all its many styles is a lifetime’s ambition and involves great discipline. One calligraphy master was said to have completely frayed the fabric of his robe’s sleeves at one sitting through their chafing on the surface of his writing table. It is no coincidence that the character for ‘eternity’ or ei 永 is the one most usually given to novice students. This is because it contains all the main points, strokes and dashes used in the most complex ideograms. It seems most apt that it's ‘eternity’ as calligraphy is a lifelong pursuit .
The fiendish aspect of turning out even average calligraphy is number of criteria you must meet for something to look halfway decent. Not only must the different lines and components of characters be executed with fidelity to the teacher's model, the lines must demonstrate an appropriate variation in thickness and in their tapering and swelling. Secondly, each character on the page must be in proportion within itself and relative to all other characters. On top of this there are the less exact things such as flair, balance and energy. The best characters exude a zest, energy and dynamism which conveys something unique, the signature of the artist. Like being a good percussionist, the palette of sounds / colours is limited, but this makes the variation of ink and space somehow more stark; there is nowhere to hide errors.
1. Spontaneity
In sleeve notes to Miles Davis’s “Some Kind of Blue” Bill Evans compared calligraphy with improvisational jazz. “There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will not destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible….” What Bill Evans writes here pierces to the core of what calligraphy is all about: an instant art with an ancient pedigree.
Calligraphy is entirely at odds with our throwaway, liquid modern culture. Whilst graphic design software allows creation in seconds that can be manipulated indefinitely, this art involves painstaking honing of one’s art and the inability to edit the finished product. It is 30 second art without the luxury of the painter’s scrutinising gaze or second lick of gouache. Each attempt is a choreographed routine carried out in a fluid and an unstilted manner, which, once started, cannot be delayed and halted without aborting the whole venture. There is exhilaration to the performance of most calligraphy precisely for the reason that there is no turning back once started. One particular character might involved the following succession of manoeuvres: hold the brush horizontally, hovering over the page in the top left quadrant, press down, create a solid vertical line then swivel the brush on its side, pull up sharply to create tag. Make another separate mark at 60 degrees then make an oblique straight down to a certain point, tentatively angle it, swoosh up to leave a small tail then end with three horizontal lines.
So much of calligraphy is about release of ki or spirit energy. The turns, swivels and the hesitations punctuate great arcs, rips and whips where the brush sweeps like sword cut. There is a fantastic feeling of freedom when faced with the blank paper but the flair of your brushwork must have a modicum of control if you are to produce work that has balance and strength. It is this delicate tension between the two that is so addictive. The rub is that you need to have all of this in your head in at least a sketchy way before your brush touches the paper. Once that ebony ink soils that page of pristine white, there can be no second thoughts and no room for hesitation. Because there is no amendment allowed, each draft is a test of poise, concentration and nerve. It is important to keep the flow going and to remain relaxed and ever sinuous in the hand. In this sense, calligraphy unexpectedly has more in common with dance or sport - for example stepping up to take a soccer penalty - than with the thoughtful iteration of an oil painting. Each essay takes seconds to produce but must be balanced.
2. Simplicity
One of the best things about calligraphy is that it allows a return to artisanal rawness. It seems that for a modest investment in materials, calligraphy can give the pleasure or at least the pleasurable illusion of partaking in a sort of craftsmanship. There is a real pleasure in unpacking and arranging the materials. The horsehair brush comes out and the brush fibres are lightly tousled to prime them for use. The blue felt is slid out from under the case and placed in the middle of the table, a bronze paperweight in the shape of a dragon is brandished ready to hold the paper in place. The heavy ink stone made of a sedimentary rock and moulded to an oblong shape with bevelled edges is weighted and placed at my side. I note the gently sloped indentation with the smoothness of slate.
I pick out the ink block, a rectangular shaped solid block embossed with characters in gold filigree. For the next 30 minutes I will pass this block repeatedly up and down the ink stone slope in a sort of oscillating slalom to make the ink. Already my mind is starting to calm down. There is a sparse joy in the handling of these materials. The warm shine of the brush shaft, the heft of the ink stone and the slightly rough pulp feel of the rice paper. The suite of tools, the so called ‘four treasures of calligraphy’ create a Spartan scene that could form a Cotan still life; all sinewy colours and with solitude as the theme. Once the ink is ready and my mind feels prepared to engage with abstraction I relish the soft graze of a brush leaving s glistening contrails behind it, like an elongated wooden slug. There is the gentle graze of the brush against the side of the ink stone waiting for the ink to drip in, this is crucial since the centre of the brush is like a well that needs to fill with enough ink so as to be able to produce an even line without scratchiness but not so much that the ink splurges or that ends up smudging.
Japanese art is sometimes said to be possessed by a spirit of wistful loneliness and an awareness of the transience of life called wabi and sabi. Calligraphy is certainly typical in that the art itself is sinewy, non ornamental and humble. The finished work itself has a modesty to it which gives it a rustic feel and there is nothing grandiose about it – it just is what it is; and there is a great satisfaction about this too.
3. Serenity
The wisdom of calligraphy is that it seems on the surface to be a quest for perfection. Every budding calligrapher strives to emulate a model immaculately rendered in red ink by their teacher. One must believe that a well-poised arm and choreographed wrist can achieve this perfection. When I first started, I would get frustrated, my work would only proceed through many aborted, scrunched up bits of rice paper.
How many abortive squiggles does it take to get it right? But this is not the way to look at it. With each attempt to produce something beautiful and each penned iteration the mind’s cursor gets that much closer at cleaving to an invisible pattern, the mind becomes that much clearer and the forearm will be that much steadier next time. A lot of Japanese art has this character, it is a medium for polishing the sense and sensibility of the practitioner, not just about the product. Much mental tweaking and polishing goes on in the technique calligrapher that irons out the discrepancies - an little bit too angular here, round it off; a scintilla too forceful here, a jot lighter on this stroke - without conscious awareness. After hours of what seems like miscellaneously botched attempts suddenly out of the anonymous roll call a peach will suddenly appear. Suddenly I hit my stride and start to turn out more poised, subtle characters. Great satisfaction. Just like meditation forces us to accept and live with imperfection and the honing of brushwork through cack handed techniques, eventually leads to a more balanced mind that then becomes more poised. Calligraphy, more than other types of art, is a journey of self-discovery, not a destination.
“To strive for enlightenment through the wielding of brush is the meaning and purpose of hitsuzendo”.
I once witnessed a Japanese monk wielding a huge brush and creating a massive circle on a huge piece of canvas. Zen calligraphy is as much about the process of composition as it is about the end product. Zen aims to cultivate a state of equanimity and enlightenment through detachment from the everyday world. Artists of hitsuzendo use brush experience as a meditation session designed to reinvigorate body and clear the mind. The Zen line is a thick bolt of ink representing the forceful mindfulness of the calligrapher. The Zen circle, called enso a perfectly formed free form disc, is similarly meant to be a paragon of balance and control. Many religious traditions, including Islamic art revere the circle as a symbol of the unity of creation; the ability to produce a perfect circle is considered to be a sign of a purified mind.
Calligraphy is extremely therapeutic and a single session replicates to some extent the feelings of yoga practice or seated meditation. Whole evenings pass in a flash working on improving just a couple of characters. There is something hypnotic about the entire process. Making ink itself starts the calming of the mind, as the circular rubbing motion starts to mesmerise and scatter distracting thoughts. As the liquid darkens and reaches a blue black consistency, I can often feel my mind deepening in its serenity. Immersing the brush in the ink, removing excess liquid, judging angles of entry and the proportions on the page with reference to the tehon and then and co-ordinating the hand movements takes great attentiveness and is absorbing in a way few other pursuits can match. Calligraphy helps cultivate a felicitous solitude and I have found that it offers a welcome change of mental gear and solace from the madness when it is most needed.
Conclusion
So, to conclude, calligraphy is much more than just a matter of good handwriting. Of course there is the serpentine beauty of the work itself which gives aesthetic pleasure on viewing. It is a fun entreé into the world of Japanese or Chinese culture, for which the kanji ideogram is a source text. It brings me great pleasure for three main reasons. 1. It is a thrilling art of movement, spontaneity 2. It helps return create a garden of simplicity through the tactility of craft materials and 3. single minded concentration on brushwork itself brings about great calm.
As 21st century Londoners we may not enjoy the calmness afforded professional calligraphers of old. We do not inhabit sleepy pagodas shrouded in mountain mist. I might have to dash off a few characters before lunch on a Sunday or while watching the football rather than spending the whole day at it. Nevertheless, it is incredibly relaxing and I have seen my development since I left Japan in 2000. My teacher tells me I have progressed from level 7 to level 2 in that time. Anyway, it's not about the ratings, I hope my random observations have given you a sense of the value of this art. I hope to have shown you that this calligraphy is a precious, living and breathing pursuit with something to offer everyone with the courage to take up a brush, a bit of patience and a willingness to project something of themselves on paper.
By Chris Arning
The main objective of this piece is to introduce the reader to elements of Japanese calligraphy. I make no claim to expert status and readers should look elsewhere for a comprehensive treatment. This is my own, very personal take on Japanese calligraphy. My main contention is that calligraphy is one of the best antidotes to the madness and maladies of 21st century life and that it helps engender a healthy, balanced mind.
Introduction
Calligraphy has been studied for thousands of years. Calligraphy is not merely seen as an exercise in good handwriting, but rather is the foremost art form of East Asia. Good penmanship in China and elsewhere is not just considered an aesthetic hobby of the effete. Calligraphy has been the pursuit of emperors and warriors as well as poets and scribes. It is strongly linked to power and moral authority. In this sense fluidity with the brush is analogous to the value placed on oratory in the West. And whilst our Western calligraphy, with its demand for painstaking replication, tends to suppress or trammel individuality, eastern calligraphy challenges the individual to breathe fresh life into each word and endow them with spirit – so it is seen as a mark of strong, balanced character.
When I was growing up, I used to regard Chinese scripts with a sort of awe. The writing had a haughty cool about it. It was exotic and forbidding, its meaning sealed and locked into a thicket of dense ink. How could such a small entity carry such portentous meaning? There was something sinister, and sensual about it. As if single scrawled word could sentence a man to death or carry him to erotic pleasures.
A Japanese linguist has described the kanji, which gives the essential meaning of each term as the 'anatomy' of a language in miniature. And if you want to take kanji into the operating theatre and dissect it into constituent parts, then calligraphy is the answer. Calligraphy is one of the best access points into Japanese culture. Japanese is a highly visual language and kanji is key to grasping the richness of the language. Kanji literally brings the meaning into Japanese. For those undergoing the joyful purgatory of learning Japanese, calligraphy offers direct benefits. It is an excellent mnemonic drill for learning kanji stroke order. Because one practises a single character countless times, you get to grips with the architecture of the simpler characters; being able to identify radicals gives clues to deciphering more complex compounds.
Truly mastering calligraphy, and all its many styles is a lifetime’s ambition and involves great discipline. One calligraphy master was said to have completely frayed the fabric of his robe’s sleeves at one sitting through their chafing on the surface of his writing table. It is no coincidence that the character for ‘eternity’ or ei 永 is the one most usually given to novice students. This is because it contains all the main points, strokes and dashes used in the most complex ideograms. It seems most apt that it's ‘eternity’ as calligraphy is a lifelong pursuit .
The fiendish aspect of turning out even average calligraphy is number of criteria you must meet for something to look halfway decent. Not only must the different lines and components of characters be executed with fidelity to the teacher's model, the lines must demonstrate an appropriate variation in thickness and in their tapering and swelling. Secondly, each character on the page must be in proportion within itself and relative to all other characters. On top of this there are the less exact things such as flair, balance and energy. The best characters exude a zest, energy and dynamism which conveys something unique, the signature of the artist. Like being a good percussionist, the palette of sounds / colours is limited, but this makes the variation of ink and space somehow more stark; there is nowhere to hide errors.
1. Spontaneity
In sleeve notes to Miles Davis’s “Some Kind of Blue” Bill Evans compared calligraphy with improvisational jazz. “There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will not destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible….” What Bill Evans writes here pierces to the core of what calligraphy is all about: an instant art with an ancient pedigree.
Calligraphy is entirely at odds with our throwaway, liquid modern culture. Whilst graphic design software allows creation in seconds that can be manipulated indefinitely, this art involves painstaking honing of one’s art and the inability to edit the finished product. It is 30 second art without the luxury of the painter’s scrutinising gaze or second lick of gouache. Each attempt is a choreographed routine carried out in a fluid and an unstilted manner, which, once started, cannot be delayed and halted without aborting the whole venture. There is exhilaration to the performance of most calligraphy precisely for the reason that there is no turning back once started. One particular character might involved the following succession of manoeuvres: hold the brush horizontally, hovering over the page in the top left quadrant, press down, create a solid vertical line then swivel the brush on its side, pull up sharply to create tag. Make another separate mark at 60 degrees then make an oblique straight down to a certain point, tentatively angle it, swoosh up to leave a small tail then end with three horizontal lines.
So much of calligraphy is about release of ki or spirit energy. The turns, swivels and the hesitations punctuate great arcs, rips and whips where the brush sweeps like sword cut. There is a fantastic feeling of freedom when faced with the blank paper but the flair of your brushwork must have a modicum of control if you are to produce work that has balance and strength. It is this delicate tension between the two that is so addictive. The rub is that you need to have all of this in your head in at least a sketchy way before your brush touches the paper. Once that ebony ink soils that page of pristine white, there can be no second thoughts and no room for hesitation. Because there is no amendment allowed, each draft is a test of poise, concentration and nerve. It is important to keep the flow going and to remain relaxed and ever sinuous in the hand. In this sense, calligraphy unexpectedly has more in common with dance or sport - for example stepping up to take a soccer penalty - than with the thoughtful iteration of an oil painting. Each essay takes seconds to produce but must be balanced.
2. Simplicity
One of the best things about calligraphy is that it allows a return to artisanal rawness. It seems that for a modest investment in materials, calligraphy can give the pleasure or at least the pleasurable illusion of partaking in a sort of craftsmanship. There is a real pleasure in unpacking and arranging the materials. The horsehair brush comes out and the brush fibres are lightly tousled to prime them for use. The blue felt is slid out from under the case and placed in the middle of the table, a bronze paperweight in the shape of a dragon is brandished ready to hold the paper in place. The heavy ink stone made of a sedimentary rock and moulded to an oblong shape with bevelled edges is weighted and placed at my side. I note the gently sloped indentation with the smoothness of slate.
I pick out the ink block, a rectangular shaped solid block embossed with characters in gold filigree. For the next 30 minutes I will pass this block repeatedly up and down the ink stone slope in a sort of oscillating slalom to make the ink. Already my mind is starting to calm down. There is a sparse joy in the handling of these materials. The warm shine of the brush shaft, the heft of the ink stone and the slightly rough pulp feel of the rice paper. The suite of tools, the so called ‘four treasures of calligraphy’ create a Spartan scene that could form a Cotan still life; all sinewy colours and with solitude as the theme. Once the ink is ready and my mind feels prepared to engage with abstraction I relish the soft graze of a brush leaving s glistening contrails behind it, like an elongated wooden slug. There is the gentle graze of the brush against the side of the ink stone waiting for the ink to drip in, this is crucial since the centre of the brush is like a well that needs to fill with enough ink so as to be able to produce an even line without scratchiness but not so much that the ink splurges or that ends up smudging.
Japanese art is sometimes said to be possessed by a spirit of wistful loneliness and an awareness of the transience of life called wabi and sabi. Calligraphy is certainly typical in that the art itself is sinewy, non ornamental and humble. The finished work itself has a modesty to it which gives it a rustic feel and there is nothing grandiose about it – it just is what it is; and there is a great satisfaction about this too.
3. Serenity
The wisdom of calligraphy is that it seems on the surface to be a quest for perfection. Every budding calligrapher strives to emulate a model immaculately rendered in red ink by their teacher. One must believe that a well-poised arm and choreographed wrist can achieve this perfection. When I first started, I would get frustrated, my work would only proceed through many aborted, scrunched up bits of rice paper.
How many abortive squiggles does it take to get it right? But this is not the way to look at it. With each attempt to produce something beautiful and each penned iteration the mind’s cursor gets that much closer at cleaving to an invisible pattern, the mind becomes that much clearer and the forearm will be that much steadier next time. A lot of Japanese art has this character, it is a medium for polishing the sense and sensibility of the practitioner, not just about the product. Much mental tweaking and polishing goes on in the technique calligrapher that irons out the discrepancies - an little bit too angular here, round it off; a scintilla too forceful here, a jot lighter on this stroke - without conscious awareness. After hours of what seems like miscellaneously botched attempts suddenly out of the anonymous roll call a peach will suddenly appear. Suddenly I hit my stride and start to turn out more poised, subtle characters. Great satisfaction. Just like meditation forces us to accept and live with imperfection and the honing of brushwork through cack handed techniques, eventually leads to a more balanced mind that then becomes more poised. Calligraphy, more than other types of art, is a journey of self-discovery, not a destination.
“To strive for enlightenment through the wielding of brush is the meaning and purpose of hitsuzendo”.
I once witnessed a Japanese monk wielding a huge brush and creating a massive circle on a huge piece of canvas. Zen calligraphy is as much about the process of composition as it is about the end product. Zen aims to cultivate a state of equanimity and enlightenment through detachment from the everyday world. Artists of hitsuzendo use brush experience as a meditation session designed to reinvigorate body and clear the mind. The Zen line is a thick bolt of ink representing the forceful mindfulness of the calligrapher. The Zen circle, called enso a perfectly formed free form disc, is similarly meant to be a paragon of balance and control. Many religious traditions, including Islamic art revere the circle as a symbol of the unity of creation; the ability to produce a perfect circle is considered to be a sign of a purified mind.
Calligraphy is extremely therapeutic and a single session replicates to some extent the feelings of yoga practice or seated meditation. Whole evenings pass in a flash working on improving just a couple of characters. There is something hypnotic about the entire process. Making ink itself starts the calming of the mind, as the circular rubbing motion starts to mesmerise and scatter distracting thoughts. As the liquid darkens and reaches a blue black consistency, I can often feel my mind deepening in its serenity. Immersing the brush in the ink, removing excess liquid, judging angles of entry and the proportions on the page with reference to the tehon and then and co-ordinating the hand movements takes great attentiveness and is absorbing in a way few other pursuits can match. Calligraphy helps cultivate a felicitous solitude and I have found that it offers a welcome change of mental gear and solace from the madness when it is most needed.
Conclusion
So, to conclude, calligraphy is much more than just a matter of good handwriting. Of course there is the serpentine beauty of the work itself which gives aesthetic pleasure on viewing. It is a fun entreé into the world of Japanese or Chinese culture, for which the kanji ideogram is a source text. It brings me great pleasure for three main reasons. 1. It is a thrilling art of movement, spontaneity 2. It helps return create a garden of simplicity through the tactility of craft materials and 3. single minded concentration on brushwork itself brings about great calm.
As 21st century Londoners we may not enjoy the calmness afforded professional calligraphers of old. We do not inhabit sleepy pagodas shrouded in mountain mist. I might have to dash off a few characters before lunch on a Sunday or while watching the football rather than spending the whole day at it. Nevertheless, it is incredibly relaxing and I have seen my development since I left Japan in 2000. My teacher tells me I have progressed from level 7 to level 2 in that time. Anyway, it's not about the ratings, I hope my random observations have given you a sense of the value of this art. I hope to have shown you that this calligraphy is a precious, living and breathing pursuit with something to offer everyone with the courage to take up a brush, a bit of patience and a willingness to project something of themselves on paper.
This is the character for 'wisdom', one of my favourite concepts. This is the end of meditation and mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition, along with compassion. In this version I have quite deliberately made the character smudge (with overly absorbent paper), to symbolise the seeping in of wisdom into our minds.
ほかの芸術 More Artwork |
This is what I have provisionally entitled 'jumbled felicity'. This is because I have taken the character for happiness, felicity or blessedness which in Japanese is translated as 幸福(こうふく)and I have cunningly deconstructed the radicals and strokes in order to convey the jumbled and giddy feeling of a new beloved.
ほかの芸術 More Artwork |
New Calligraphy Poem
Ablutions done
Inkstone at my side
I sharpen my brush
And armour my pride,
And redeploy to fronts
Where the kaizen resides
I must, anew, skirmish
With myself - in retreat
Surrendering noble errors
Beget an armistice’s wrath
In arduous, tamed restraint
Of a kindness tempering shaft
Marching grid after grid
Through the phalanxes
Of sharp caged radicals
Bristling with finger traps
Only overcome with the
‘Beauty of neutralization’
Forever advancing
Toward serene affray
Arrogance and humility,
Grapple insult, accolade
Besieged by many selves
In this calligraphic melée
Hundreds of quiet failures
Watching futilities at play
Folding back on oneself
On whetstones of utopia
A mustering of subtleties
Gently hardens the blade
Mediocrity’s in my ranks
I must blandish it away
I grasp the hilt of the shaft
My effeteness has to pay
A carnage of expectancies
On the spilling fields today
As I survey the black battlefield
There’s little nobility to be found
Amongst this gore of strivings
None of them the coup de grace
Maladroitness never met its end
Thus my diffidence staggers on
I throw myself at difficulty
Again and again
Some beauty, some pain
From this exertion strained
Fighting without fighting
Tomorrow’s another day
Panacea long reached for
From disenchanted dream
On the brink of attainment
Brushstrokes snatch away
Like working away at love
How the spiral path is braved
Chris Arning (2020)
Inkstone at my side
I sharpen my brush
And armour my pride,
And redeploy to fronts
Where the kaizen resides
I must, anew, skirmish
With myself - in retreat
Surrendering noble errors
Beget an armistice’s wrath
In arduous, tamed restraint
Of a kindness tempering shaft
Marching grid after grid
Through the phalanxes
Of sharp caged radicals
Bristling with finger traps
Only overcome with the
‘Beauty of neutralization’
Forever advancing
Toward serene affray
Arrogance and humility,
Grapple insult, accolade
Besieged by many selves
In this calligraphic melée
Hundreds of quiet failures
Watching futilities at play
Folding back on oneself
On whetstones of utopia
A mustering of subtleties
Gently hardens the blade
Mediocrity’s in my ranks
I must blandish it away
I grasp the hilt of the shaft
My effeteness has to pay
A carnage of expectancies
On the spilling fields today
As I survey the black battlefield
There’s little nobility to be found
Amongst this gore of strivings
None of them the coup de grace
Maladroitness never met its end
Thus my diffidence staggers on
I throw myself at difficulty
Again and again
Some beauty, some pain
From this exertion strained
Fighting without fighting
Tomorrow’s another day
Panacea long reached for
From disenchanted dream
On the brink of attainment
Brushstrokes snatch away
Like working away at love
How the spiral path is braved
Chris Arning (2020)
Slugs and Silkworms
I spent my morning with slugs again.
And the worms had fun with me too
Proliferating in their glossy slickness
Each comma - paused - in fat reproach
Plump with my failed approximations
Fleshy bodies blundered in clumsiness
Black ink asphalt, faulty, satin with glee
At the drudge: smudged, deftless dance
Unvarnished lacquer returned to resin
Poisoning my aesthetics and faith
Undistinguished; now indiscriminate
A wriggling, wretched; spineless zealot?
Husbanded to a Woman in the Dunes
Ardently eluded, doomed and delusive
A Japanese ancestor faintly grimaces
And dashes off a tanka, so imperious
That court ladies in Kyoto - reel, recoil
Of his lustrous sleeve as it swishes over
Mulberry weave; leaving brushstrokes
To read: ‘young silkworms must toil…’
And the worms had fun with me too
Proliferating in their glossy slickness
Each comma - paused - in fat reproach
Plump with my failed approximations
Fleshy bodies blundered in clumsiness
Black ink asphalt, faulty, satin with glee
At the drudge: smudged, deftless dance
Unvarnished lacquer returned to resin
Poisoning my aesthetics and faith
Undistinguished; now indiscriminate
A wriggling, wretched; spineless zealot?
Husbanded to a Woman in the Dunes
Ardently eluded, doomed and delusive
A Japanese ancestor faintly grimaces
And dashes off a tanka, so imperious
That court ladies in Kyoto - reel, recoil
Of his lustrous sleeve as it swishes over
Mulberry weave; leaving brushstrokes
To read: ‘young silkworms must toil…’