Etsy Pot Poems

"My wife's old man was a guy named Pan,
  He had goat feet and he carried a gun.
  And though he was the clod that made her,
  I never could love that grisly Satyr."

"What keeps time without making sense
  Reminds our life, of the present tense,
  Distracts the mind from flows of fear,
  From deep inside, our eyes might tear."

"The Clown, the Chief, and some of their pals,
  Rode to Laredo to pick up some gals.
  But when they got there Laredo was closed,
  A war had started, and no one had clothes."

"If the gals in the room liked the guys we'll assume,
 Why bunch up in packs with the men to their backs?"

"One fine gentleman demonstrated,
 to some lady friends, then all went native."

"I saw my King down in the town,
  I set off to make my plea.
  If Queen then puts the drawbridge down,
  Will I hang if she takes me?"

"You’ll visit the palace and greet all their souls,
  You’ll give love to the lovers, and top up their bowls."

"I want to go a-birding
  I’ll hunt for the Great Toucan
  In Mexico I’ll be calling,
  Through Jungles of Yucatan."

"Les gens pensent, 'Ils sont mieux!
  On veut danser avec les deux!"

"Some say love's an emotion,
 Others say love's in the head.
 Some complain love’s a commotion,
 And maintain we should keep it in bed."

"In old Mexico, I shared love with a girl,
   in an ruin called Casa Moreños,
Her old family home, of aristocrats gone,
   they served me some Chile rellenos."

"If Arabia's faithful meditated,
  Would Palestine get liberated?

The showers of time spill over to rhyme,
Like a pot fired twice is bound to be nice

"A Buddhist from Iran who followed the Koran,
  Said "Violence forget.it! I'm sitting cross legged!"

"A Boddhisatva sat in lotus,
 At his altar Zen he showed us."

"Three beauties of that continent,
  made moody by our sentiments."

"A Shaman, a Cook, and a Clown
  Looked for women in a faraway town.
  Lacking the knack they took none to the sack,
  And went home after getting turned down."

"When they open up this old clay box,
  They'll find inside some poems that shock.
  Then I learned my family above,
  Put deep inside my memories of love."

 "It's never quite dark enough to make love in a parking lot!"

"A Shaman hunter, while walking in the snow,
 Came across two women, whom he liked but did not know.
 The erotic gals were naked, but weren't all shivering cold,
 'They might be curanderas, why else would they be so bold?' "

"Wearing headdresses, of fur and feather,
 Some dutiful Shamans, got together.
 They met two sorceresses from a foreign tribe,
 And tried to forget their Shamanic vibe."

"High in a palace in old Indonesia,
 There once was a Queen who practiced amnesia,
 She gave up all knowledge in exchange for her vows,
 To meditate on the Buddha without wearing clothes."

"Liquid lines in fires of chance,
  Make flesh shine, and appear to dance."

"After the ball she put in her mask,
  With beaked noses, of lovers past."

"Give up old morays, but when push comes to shove,
 Make some bold forays into temples of love."

"Three storybook critters put on clothes,
  And headed to the city, . . .
  . . . for what reason? Who knows?"

"What keeps time without making sense
  Reminds our life, of the present tense,
  Distracts the mind from flows of fear,
  From deep inside, our eyes may tear."

"Drops that fall are driven by sun,
 Watery thoughts may merge into one."

"Shaman in the Snow"

"A hunter-shaman, while walking in the snow,
 Came across two women, whom he liked but did not know.
 The erotic gals were naked, but weren't shivering cold,
 'They may be curanderas, why else would they be so bold?' "

Most of my content laden work is about mendicants, Buddhists, lovers, spiritual interactions with the physical plane, and often seems to be loaded with sexual innuendo. Sex, and provocation, are the impetus for the soul to improve itself. Insofar as human desire can be channelled, enlightenment can sometimes follow. This is the essence of tantra.

Sometimes my drawings don't have much of a drama going on. This is the state of aimless flux in which we live the daily moments of our lives. Then something happens, and it becomes a bit of a story. So it is with these drawings.

What would you do if you found two frozen women in the snow? You'd take them home, throw blankets around them, administer hot tea and brandy and warm them up of course!

But what if the women, or men for that matter, weren't even shivering, or acting cold? You might be suspicious, or even nervous! If you were a Shaman, a brujo, or person of spirit, you'd recognize these were like-minded persons, possessed with extra powers. You'd care for them just the same, but with a certain wariness.

"The Shaman's Love Box"

"Wearing headdresses, of fur and feather,
 Some Shamans and Brahmans got together.
 They met two sorceresses from another tribe,
 And tried to forget their Shamanic vibe."


This is another one of my crazy figure drawing boxes.

Why do I put these hats that look like sandwiches on people's heads? I'm not sure. All I know is that I like drawing hats, and the hats that really impress me are the really big ones, the elaborate ones.

Shamanic hats from around the world are unique in shape and design. Traditional native American and Siberian shaman's dress in colorful finery of furs, and feathers, and beadwork. Such costumes speak of a connection with a psychic and mythological world, a connection with forces beyond the daily realm of experience.

The Shaman lives on the periphery of society. He or she is generally not included in most group activities. He is tolerated, paid for, kept up by a kind of group will as a sort of insurance practice for bad times. For when were Shamans consulted? When all was well, when crops were good, when the tribe was at peace? Not on your life. During such times the Shaman would be laughed at, and barely thrown a bone to nibble on. But as soon as some reckoning with the underworld needed to be made, some dialogue with primal forces of nature, or a debt settled with ancestors, or ghosts, or demonic creatures, then the Shaman was in huge demand. It was in such times that he or she was paraded out in the open in all his or her finery for all the tribe to see.

Naturally the Shamanic caste and Brahmanic castes have something in common. They are conveyors of cultural liturgy, of knowledge, of the power to heal, to worship to conduct rituals, marriages, death rites etcetera.

Shamans are people too . . . they marry . . . they suffer all the usual temptations  . . infidelity greed lust, the coveting of power etcetera. However their profession places their work in a kind of sacred trust, which they must never betray. This is why Shamans, when they are not Shamans, are in a kind of ecstasy. The weight of the world has come off their shoulders.

Hence Shamans and Brahmans are, and were similar . . . and always will be.

"The Buddhist Queen"

"High in a palace in old Indonesia,
 There once was a Queen who practiced amnesia,
 She gave up all knowledge in exchange for her vows,
 To meditate on the Buddha without wearing her clothes."

This box is a what I call medium sized . . nine inches in length, larger than the other boxes here. More views of this piece are on Etsy.

Again the recurring theme of a woman in meditation . . . this time I exploited the flow of temoku loosely applied over Shino and wax resist to create the shimmering halo effect of a crown.

The rhymes and titles are something I write to complete the work, in my mind, in my imagination. My pots are never perfect, but by writing something about them I hustle them along towards their destination, a little like a shepherd calling out to a flock.

"Move along there!"

"Night of Revelry"

"At a festival in France that was somewhat arty,
  People danced, to enliven the party."


This is a High-Fired Carbon-Trapped Shino Glazed Stoneware Box, decorated with Figures. The lively white lines with lascivious tones of red made me think of the title, "Night of Revelry".

Of course the title, the name, even the images on the side are all fantasy! The work is just a piece of ceramic, innate rock, as truthful to fire as a puddle of melted pyrometric cones. Everything we do is marked and defined by perceptions. The effect of naming is key in this process. The assignation of words to an object forever colors its perception, even to those who cannot read.

The effect was made by drawing on the Shino glaze with wax resist, and precisely controlling the flow of reduction atmosphere around the piece during the firing. There is no application of oxide washes.

Approximate Measurements 7 1/8" Long, 4 1/2" Wide, 31/2" High, and weighs 1.43 kg. 

"Box for a Masked Ball"

"After the ball she put her mask,

 With a beaked nose from a lover past."

I think these boxes are a place for me to develop subconscious content, in so far as I have no idea what I am going to draw until the drawing's done. Then I have to identify, for myself only, why I made it, and what it's about. Hence the rhyme and title, they are for me. You may think my notions about my work are entirely incorrect, or even inappropriate. 

An artist is simply one that recognizes that the subconscious is the real motivator in life, and one who learns to work with it. 

"Three Critters went to Town"

"Three storybook critters put on clothes,

  And headed to the city, . . .

  . . . for what reason? Who knows?"

Another of my boxes made with a light high-fire clay, glazed with Shino, and drawn on with a brush and various oxide washes before firing at Cone 10.