Salvador Dali

There was a man born of Catalonia,
To whom normalcy was a razor,
Tracing lines of grey across his wrists,
Uniformity he fought tooth and brush,

With an upturned moustache,
And a cane,
He carved a path for artists everywhere,
A proponent of classicism and surrealism,

A true artist,
A personality of eccentricity and controversy,
Ostentatious to some,
But wholly himself,

Works that tore open reality,
A burning giraffe and a lobster telephone,
Galatea and Columbus,
A perplexing mix of science and madness,

A genius without the right to die,
But even allowed to rest,
In the grave,
Beneath a house of art.

Blogosphere

Blogging,
The blogosphere,
This bionic web of broaching subjects busily,
Akin to a brother of a gallery building,
Bringing beauty to the bustling bunchs,
Beguiling brainchilds,
And boisterous begetters,
A bible for bibliophiles,

A bountiful ballad of books,
A bedlam of benign braggarts,
Blue art and burgundy art,
Babbling and baying,
Blending like a beautiful wine of bravura,
Bring on the baroque banquet,
More blogging,
Let’s be bloggers.

Hopeful Youth

The Earth is amidst a storm,
Grey and ghastly skies,
But let us not forget,
When the world is taking in water,
There are those who wish for the future,
To have an upward trajectory,
For division to be subtracted,
Those whose years have not yet seen the gloom,

The youths wield their weapons,
Spraycans and paint,
They wash the drab away,
With images of doves,
And purple fingers crossed,
A mural of prismatic positivity,
In violets and teals,
Tattooing the world with hopeful graffiti,

I envy their zeal,
They wave and call to hopes light,
As it crosses the street,
Elusive hat brim floorward,
Does hope hear them?
Does it see their art?
Does it hear their pleas?
Or does it continue on into the rain?

Imperfection

I was complimented once,
My work extolled,
It’s true,
A perfection praised,
Though it escapes my vision,

Is perfection real?
Is this work truly a magnum opus?
A tour de force,
Or is perfection merely perception?
Our work could be as flawed as ourselves,

One mans treasure,
Is another mans filth,
We do not share eyes,
A sistine chapel to one,
Could be an intantile scribble to another,

Perfect is a dream,
A pure idea,
That flees from us,
At the speed of light,
Escaping our covetous hands,

To my eyes,
My so-called art,
Is as juvenile as my aspirations.

A Furnace Inside

I have a furnace within me,
I think we may all do,
A source of flame within,
An internal hephaestus,
We are all smiths,

Pain is fuel,
Struggle is simply material,
Anguish another paint stroke,
The hurts of life,
Become as grist for the fire,

Our experiences are the forest,
From which we draw our lumber,
Statues,
Scribblings,
Sonnets,
Our products come in many forms,

From flames,
The artist creates beauty,
And messages,
Still hot from the forge,
We can all be artisans,
Ready to take the hammer,

To the furnace within.

The Painted Man

Now they call him the Painted Man,
But once upon a time he had no name,
A true blank slate,
Eyes of grey,
And colourless hair.

Society gave him his colour,
Everyone who met him painted a stroke,
We were all artists,
His body was our canvas,
Our words to him were the brush.

Red of anger and frustration,
Blues of sorrow and disappointment,
Yellows of joy and excitement,
Greens of envy and want,
And myriad other shades of feeling.

He is now the Painted Man,
A creation of society,
A monument and a monster,
Are we really any different?
Were we not all painted?

A New Theme

Greetings inmates!

I hope you are all having a great day! I have quite a strange subject today, in that i’m not entirely sure what point i’m trying to make with it. I fear this post is going to be something of a ramble from me. Awfully sorry about that. Haha!

WorldofHarley has been going for a good few months now and i’m really quite proud of the blogs progress so far (Thanks entirely to my wonderful inmate followers). I’m actually coming up to 70 posts now, amazingly. I’m enjoying it immensely and i’d like to think that i’m entertaining people and, with any luck, making them think too. I’m profoundly happy with the reception the WordPress community has given to my work so far. have far more to give though, i promise you that!

However, that is not what i was actually going to talk about today. You see, i was looking at my blog earlier on and something irks me slightly. I can’t really stand the theme i’m using any more. I don’t feel it strictly feels right more. It looks more “street” than “insane”. I want something that fits my crazy and dark style. I’m not sure if I’ve just gotten bored of the appearance or my intentions about the blog have changed. Perhaps i saw someone with the same theme? I forget to be honest. Anyway this is all besides the point. The point i am trying to make is i feel that i need a change. I need a new theme.

I’m not entirely sure what i’m looking for either. Something with the same functionality as my current theme, just with a different look. I want something dark, not necessarily black. Something with clowns, monsters, Tim Burton-esque characters and jesters. Something that has a sort of “insane asylum” aesthetic to it. Something that is, simply put, very Harlequin-like. Anyone who has seen my Harlequin photos on the blog may have a vague idea of what i’m going for.

I also want to include my blogs tag line: “Fun for the whole asylum!”. I feel it represents what this blog is about rather well. Something like this perhaps, albeit far more well made. This simply took me 5 minutes on Microsoft Paint. Anyone who reads my blog knows i’m not exactly a visual artist.

Not very artistic, but i like the idea.

Basically, i’m calling out to the greater WordPress community and my own Inmates for help here. Help me find or create a new theme for WorldofHarley.  Any advice would be graciously accepted, even if it is only information on how to go about creating a theme myself. Assist this inept clown, before he sheds a tear…

Have a very crazy day inmates!

A random picture.

So i was thinking the other day about writing about or world building a sort of cartoony fantasy world with a sort of Tim Burton-esque feel to it. In my minds eye, it was primarily black and white with the occasional red. A dreary landscape with lots of depressing characters and locations. The characters i imagined looking almost like the old Final fantasy sprites crossed with the Binding of Isaac characters.

I had an idea for a character called “Creep” who would be the protagonist. He was going to be a fairly ordinary young waiter who was thrust into a frankly mental city with many pop culture and video game references. One idea i had was having Creep infiltrate a suicide cult whose members topped themselves by dressing up in white and red robes and jumping off roofs a-la Assassin’s creed. That may give you an idea of the style of humor I’d intend to use for this.

Here is a very poor picture of poor little Creep.

I’m not quite sure what to call the style here (Tim Burton perhaps?) but I’d imagine the majority of characters would look like something along these lines in this fantasy world. So yes, just a random idea that came to me today.

What do you think?