Our Chimera

Even though I have two drawings in my sketchbook, finally, for last week's chimera "assignment," I don't seem to have my sketchbook in the studio just now. It's in my purse up at the house. But I do have a journal here. It's one that Jim Bertolino and I write collaborative poetry in, and sometimes we draw collaboratively, too. Here's a kind of chimera I found in the journal next to a collaborative poem written at The Archer in Bellingham on July 9, 2007. The drawing is approximately the same age. I'll include the poem in this posting, too.

This is a rare Duck-Billed Pachyderm drawn in ink by James Bertolino and Anita K. Boyle,
discovered traipsing across my journal.

The Poem is written by three people: me, Jim and an anonymous donor. Could be my sister Carol. Could be Isaac. I don't think it could be anyone else, but there's where I might be wrong.

The Oval Czar
A political poem written at The Archer 
in Bellingham on July 9, 2007. Just saying.

The Callus Sisters are
singing and we're stringing
spider threads between stars.
What else could we do? Short
of paying our long overdue
taxes, we knew enough
to run amuck like pigs
dancing religiously—a regular
jigging for Cod. You know
that fish symbol you see
on cars? Yah. That's us.
Except without any
bumper stickers or dust drawings.
No piraña. Fish aren't as stupid
as people think they are. Not
even close. Of course, a
moderately bright trout
could run this country
better than this stupid
little slop-monger in the
oval shitter now. Why, he can't even
stand on someone's knee with his
other foot behind that someone's neck,
while playing the kazoo and slapping
rhythm into a pair of spoons.
What a dumb shyster! Yah.
My lizard's got better
technique than that
Bush-rabbit. But to Hades with
all of it. We'll eat fish for
lower cholesterol, fat-donkey.
---

Collaborative poetry hardly ever goes where you think it will. They are a kind of chimera all their own. That's all I've got to say about that.

--Anita