af·fla·tus
[uh-fley-tuhs]
–noun
1.
inspiration; an impelling mental force acting from within.
2.
divine communication of knowledge.
This is my art blog, from poetry to graphic design to anything beyond. It'll also document my acting career and my modelling and pretty much any other creatively self-indulgent pursuit I decide to post. It might not be my best work, and I can't even promise I'll keep up with it, but it's here if I need it.
All content on this blog is the exclusive intellectual property of Jacob A. Budenz (unless otherwise stated).
My personal blog is cgjake.tumblr.com
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
“The Horror”
This is kind of an oldie. I’ve been going through lots of files lately. Text is from the illustrious Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
“Daffodil Dreams”
Hama-Rikyu Garden in Tokyo. This picture is almost two years old, and suddenly I’m having doubts that these are actually daffodils. Oh well.
“Rosa Mystica”
“Peace, peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet.
My whole life’s buried here;
Heap earth upon it.” —Oscar Wilde
“The Melodrama of Mushroom & Medusa”
A fun day with some squid and some modeling for Brian Henry. Check him out, his work is really worth seeing.
On Laundry
“Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.”
“Love Calls Us to the Things of This World,” Richard Wilbur
I wanted
to measure meter by machines
shirts stumbling over and over,
pants pattering around and around:
poetry in piles of clothes.
But I couldn’t, because
piano-players’ fingers—
folding together, twisting together—
pools of light in watery eyes—glinting,
catching glints, catching glimpses, catching me—
bleached words—or words that pale
against the comfort they can’t give,
but that your hands can, maybe—
all got in the way.
But I think I’ll be okay.
It’s just that some loads are never finished
and some things will never dry,
so leave me crying, let me sigh
until at least the first load is done.
Runner’s High
It rises
when cadence falls
from musical feet, feet
like lead weights
on golden wings,
when lungs inflate
like hot air balloons,
when I
rise. I
rise;
cold air slides
down my throat
like sips
of dry Riesling;
long, gluttonous
legs gobble
sidewalks,
city blocks,
countries,
worlds—all
is my soufflé.
And I
transcend.
photo by Brian Henry. More on this soon.
Consider the Stars
Bound at her hands and feet, she gazed up at the sky. “Have you ever considered,” she asked, “the stars? How connected we all are? How, thousands of years ago, some great mind or other might’ve been looking up at the same thing, wondering the same thing?”
“Actually, no, I haven’t,” he said. “Because speaking from a scientific standpoint, stars are so far away that the nearest one takes at least a thousand years for its light to travel the earth. So, really, the great minds from thousands of years ago would have been looking at a very different night sky.”
He dragged the blade across her throat for the third and final time that night, and all thought of stars spilled from her in a little flood of lightless liquid.
