Contradictory Abstract Nouns (Photography Challenge)

Today I’m looking at finding the uncouthness in sophistication and the sophistication in uncouthness.

For today’s images I used a brad filter with moveable lines and shapes. Were the lines uncouthness? I thought of faux zebra stripes as uncouthness. I thought of the attempts to use the neon blue to recreate the 3-D effect as uncouthness: course and crude, awkward, clumsy, strange, ungraceful, in action but not result. The work is sophisticated because it is altered through experience. But where is the strange false arguement, the falseness is the bringing my filters, the shapes I create into the real world through light and mirrors. It is the digital capture itself. My techniques are continuously becoming more  sophisticated, educating myself in the history and techniques of abstract art, and mastering the techniques I’ve created through daily practice and trial and error. So the medium in a way is the uncouthness, string lights, mirrors, paper cuttings, none of them are sophisticated. The way that once I find what I’m looking for I push a button, move slightly push a button again, none of that is sophisticated, but the result is sophisticated.

November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Today we start the fourth week of the challenge with a two for Tuesday prompt:

1. Write a love poem, and/or…
2. Write an anti-love poem.

dVerse Poets Pub

Today’s prompt for Poetics is to explore the connections of drinking and beverages to poetry. In a way this is a good fit with uncouthness and sophistication, as beverages and the way they are imbibed can be symbols of both.

For the Love of Hot Cocoa on a Rainy Winter Day

I adore a warm cocoa in the dining room
              Yeah?  I like a cocoa while watching tv
pinkysticking out from my china cup
             a mouth-miss dripping on my white tank top
Ghirardelli double chocolate, founded in history
             Value corner Mix or whatever’s cheaper in a tin
sealed by an eagle, its packet shimmers
             the quarter cup of mix in hot water
oak, rose and valentine in the light
            grainy in my cracked, glued mug
the smell reminds me of a perfect square
      crossing my re-stitched slippers in my fabric fraying easy chair
of dark chocolate melting on my tongue as a reward
     that creaks loudly as I pull the lever to release the foot rest
for a week of depriving myself
     with an explosive pop, and I lean back
I sit straighter at the long, wood dining table
      the steam opens my clogged sinuses
with crisp bleached tablecloth and cloth napkins
      reminding me of instant Swiss with tiny dried marshmallows
 my silver spoon stirs and stirs, clinks against the china like a tiny bell
     the salty air on my cheeks mingling with the steam
until the smooth liquid swirls a ribbon of the melted curled white chocolate I drizzled on top,
      while listening to the waves crash on the beach
reminding me of the elegant parties my parents threw
     the hike with the pack was hard, but this made it worth it
when I was given a cup of cocoa, and told to go upstairs