"The Memory Inside Bone" by Joshua Norton

Image posted with the permission of the artist. Since I last wrote about one of Joshua Norton's works, he's completed a residency at the MN Center for Book Arts where he created some wonderfully creepy screenprint popout constructions. He's also featured in the newly published book Low Tech Print. Check out his work on his website here.

This cyclops eye is my gift to you. A memento of what we once shared. Do not cry for me, for my history is spread out like a coded tapestry lined with tentacle tusks and embroidered with layers of sediment. It got pretty complicated there toward the end, but when we boil it down, it gets pretty basic. Basic as primary colors. Basic as a handful of particles. Ooo, ouch, but the blood is still pouring out from where that spear struck, and I gotta go. The next Ice Age is on the horizon. Take my hide and keep warm.

"Astral Bouquet" by Joshua Norton

Image posted with the permission of the artist. More of Joshua Norton's work can be viewed and purchased here.

Black orb hurled across

Unfathomable distance.

Blue flowers bubble up

Toward flecks of light, encircling

A peach pit of a star.

Blue roses (real ones, not dyed or

Genetic modifications.)

Why this unnatural desire,

Fantastic hope of receiving an

Astral bouquet?

I've traveled the galaxy

In search of something impossible.

I've suffered loss of bone density,

Risked exposure to cosmic rays and

Never seeing my mother's face again

All in service of this most romantic quest.

I've ripped this Dragon's Eye

Out of its otherworldly soil

For you.