About
Mimi Wolske
I'M IN CROP ROTATION MODE right now...I do it to clear my head
I'm a visual thinker...that's why painting is somewhat easy and yet still challenging for me, too. I think it's because while I'm painting, the vision can change...it's ever changing, just like life.
When I'm PAINTING, it's a completely different thought process than writing poetry...which is a different thought process from writing a story. Painting is like meditating, it's like mentally falling back to a time before synaptic pruning...that time between birth and sexual maturation.
Painting is like watching a motion picture in your head from a detached point of view and stealing from it...you see something and grab at it and mentally say, "ahhh, good thought! Ohh, bad thought! ummm, colorful!" but YOU'RE STEALING from yourself :)
Sometimes I think I should mantra the image...you know, think about it over and over until it becomes soothing...but I can't work soothed, I need the energy and I want to see the energy in my paintings — the analytical process comes in steps...your eye sees something but your hand paints it differently so your brain says, "upper lip too thin" or "left foot larger than right"
I only give away or hang things in my own home that seem finished (yes, I have tons of paintings that I don't consider finished that are just put away until...someday)
Cropped photo of self-portrait, oils on Utrecht double-oil primed Belgian Linen from roll, medium texture, small.
She gets in your blood like foreign Sangria,
A taste that is oh so sweet, sweet Mimi.
She'll let you drink a case of her, Chaldea;
Or sit at her feet and think in Kalde.
Living in a box of Williamsburg paints,
Sketching lives and loves liberates her;
She'll hold you without the usual constraints,
Set you free if you're a womanizer.
She paints for herself but writes for everyone—
Portraits in poetry, lives in blood,
Lovers in words— without justification,
A true Renaissance woman but guarded.
BUT WRITING IS from an active brain where the analytical process is in play with the creative process, building, meshing, and putting an end to that part of my life and thoughts if it's poetry (I never go back a read anything more than a few months old because I see things I would do differently — a good example is in the next paragraph and the time it took to finish my 1st mystery), and I can put words to what I'm seeing in my mind...
I've been writing poetry and working on my 2nd mystery (WIP)—determining where the pinnacle thought must go...the main thrust...where the most important idea must go—and then something happens in the course of one day, or maybe the idea comes later...maybe a week or a month...for my first mystery, it has taken close to 5 years to say ENOUGH and just let it end...actually, I think what happened is that my first novel sort of took a hiatus while I worked on my poetry— I have poems that just never seem finished to me, too...I think that's how I kept feeling about the very first book, too...I just couldn't let go until it was finished
The Sound of Your Belt Coming Off
Whether my room or yours, we lie
Breathless, exhausted, the light
From the window staining our
Sweat-covered bodies where moments
Ago fingers pulled at each other and
Climbed the slippery ladders of our ribs.
Whenever it begins, the sound
Of your belt coming off, then That impatient noise you make
When you see I’m still wearing underwear,
Enthralls me beyond comprehension;
Then our bodies touch, every inch
Of flesh comes alive;
I wait for you to say
My name and talk dirty to me
In a foreign language, then turn to watch us
Fuck in the mirror in the mirror in the mirror.
The definitive click of the camera
Being turned on, aimed at the bed,
And your smug grin of satisfaction
As you watch me stare up at you
When you straddle my waist,
Stirs something deep inside of me.
Want and need, lust and head,
The sensitive inside of your thighs,
The way you bite my nipples
Just hard enough to hurt and
The gnawing at my breasts while you
Leave your mark before you bend
To the V, the warrior staking his claim
With sweet leeches of desire.
In the next battle for control
You forfeit victory to me and I glory
In hearing you moan my name
As I reach out and take, no delicacy,
The pale human bread of desire
Greedy handful by greedy handful.
You flip me over unexpectedly and
The sensations of hot covetable craving
Surges through every nerve and vein
And your chest hairs raking my back
To the sound of my skin smacking against yours;
Eyes, fingers, legs, sweat, hungry mouths,
Then the crazy woman with a head full of bees,
See how my hands curl into fists
Gripping sheets for purchase as
You beat me senseless to the pillows with thrusts.
The way you can drive me so out of my mind
With pleasure I’m practically begging you
“Fuck me as hard as you can” until my body
Finally gives in to it, then collapses with yours,
Salt laced, it arches with on final ache
So grateful I would give you anything, anything.
With only a few days for us to live,
Could this love be more insensible?
Mimi writing as Mona Arizona
©The Sound of Your Belt Coming Off
Mona Arizona, 2010 All Rights Reserved
NOW POETRY is a subtle energy; it's stirring up thoughts and then tightening those thoughts into the fewest possible words while I'm looking for a stimulant of some kind, something to make the head jump, and then rating it for linguistics...and finally looking for a format that makes sense for what is being said (okay, what is happening is I'm watching the thought process—see, again visual) ... there seems to be a lot of alliteration in my thought patterns—I'll be writing or thinking and all of a sudden go "oooo" because all of a sudden I can see it
when I've been working on my mysteries, the first one and now this WIP, I see it as I write and I begin to evaluate and I have to tell myself "STOP" because it becomes chaotic —when that happens, all of the characters in my head begin talking simultaneously and the image disappears—
Then I have to get up and walk away, go for a walk or go riding so my brain can just rest...but even then, I'm seeing everything around me and thinking.
The Touch of You and a Thousand Tongues
It’s ten in the morning and you’re taking
My breath away again, leaving my lungs
Tight from lack of air and I am aching
For the touch of you and a thousand tongues.
Wrapped in your arms, your whisper awakens
Yearnings not felt since you held me last night.
A new but familiar passion burgeons;
I am the script and you are the playwright.
Beyond a symbiotic love affair,
We share a profound mutual respect
Admiring the other’s virtues. Oh, rare
Is such a friendship we choose to protect.
Love bites bruising my body still appear
From neck to thigh, mapping the course of lust
Expressed with no words but what I revere—
With such love, I cannot be a deist.
Dominance and authority take hold,
Exposing my neck with my head pulled back;
Your heated breath at my chin, arms enfold,
Fingers dig into my waist; all your knack.
The determination seen on your face,
The power I feel under your strong hands…
Reprobate, scoundrel, yes, even scapegrace,
Every touch and every word sets your brands.
Lost in you, exposed and vulnerable,
I abandon my will to your command;
I relinquish all desire unable
To deviate from anything you’ve planned.
I am bound to you by love’s servitude;
Freely and willingly I give you all
Of me in this, our lover’s interlude—
Your hunger never permits us to loll.
The game we play of Master and his Slave
Is the foreplay, practiced stimulation.
When I am in control, what say you, knave?
Will you serve me in this lover’s union?
Tomorrow. That is your ready answer.
Tomorrow, but for now you desire me.
Every season, from spring to winter,
Whatever you want is alright with me.
Your cool finger strokes down my warm cheek;
It feels so highly inappropriate
That they grow hotter under your magic
And I burn with something that is tacit.
With your hands on either side of my breasts,
You lift me easily, let me lower;
I feel the tip; my longing thus arrests.
I impale myself; you pull me closer.
“You belong to me. You are mine,” you say.
In perfect time, we move together in
This dance, in this couple’s perfect ballet
Of two bodies in unison of skin.
I whimper and mewl with sexual need.
I gaze at you and your eyes have darkened.
“Yes,” I mumble. “And you belong to me.”
Then, in the cool water, we both descend.
Kisses like there is no tomorrow flow
Passionately over face and neck and
Legs still wrapped around you should let you know
You had me at you’re mine; keep me in hand.
Draw me like a lodestone to your rising sea;
Cast over the edge of this orgasm,
As lights flash, I scream your name. You carry
Us back to earth, love filling the chasm.
Wrapped in your arms, your whisper soothes my heart.
I hold on and say your name privately.
In our secret world, you call me sweetheart;
Brush my lips with your kiss so lovingly.
Mimi writing as Mona Arizona
©The Touch of You and a Thousand Tongues
Mona Arizona, 2013
All Rights Reserved
Sooo, what are my credentials...I was a double major in college and in two different colleges (the college of English Literature and the College of Art) and it took me an extra two years because of the requirements that needed to be fulfilled — I mean, I don't know anyone who has met the college requirements for two degrees in two completely different areas of education within four years ... who has that much time to get their ass to liberal arts classes every day and do all the reading and research and writing and studying and then haul their ass over to fine arts and do all the drawing and painting and art history studying? I needed time to eat and socialize. So, 6 1/2 years of college for two bachelor degrees...I don't know too many people who did it then and never met more than 2 or 3 later in life who did it. Secondly, well, it was two different colleges with two different dress codes...the people in liberal arts were like the white collar workers and the people in fine arts were like the blue collar workers.
So, the thought process was, if a student dressed in shabby jeans and T-shirt showed up in a liberal arts class, that person probably wasn't very bright —and it wasn't just the students who thought that way, so did the professors. It was the same prejudice across the yard, only in reverse...if a student coming to a ceramics or painting class all clean and pressed looking in their khakis and preppy shirt or girly-girl shorts and matching top, they had no talent. In every school, it was total conformity and, even though I was an honor student, I was also a nonconformist...so, the profs were hard on me and always on me, but they always used my works in both schools as examples.
Défilé de la Femme d’âge Mûr
Through the desert purples
I fell into hazes of
What you referred to as the
Virtues of favored gentleness
And of compassion but
Which on their own
Were part of the lonely air
That descended like a cerement
That disguised independence and youth
That were no more than myself.
What are the answers to those
Secrets that like a highway
Are racing to an end?
Who are those who are
Starved for sacred memories
Of future ancients who
Would share the truth?
Am I so hooked on you
That like a habit I need you to
Expose yourself to me?
A single syllable is like
A knife to the soul unless we
Keep the passage of time safe.
Thieves stalk us, the gods
And the goddesses of
Venomous, poisonous stings,
Wanting our treasure.
I need to see it all,
Have every touch it…
It is my world into which I walk:
This is my world awake
Or sleeping; it is where
I walk; it’s my knowledge of
Things I see for myself,
Things I hear around me,
Things I have felt and still
Feel, so they are from no one
But myself and which I confess
Your acceptance pleases me since
All are me most honestly and strangely.
(Parade of the Mature Woman)
Mimi Wolske, April 2013
All Rights Reserved
(The first stanza is the announcement (to you) that “she” fell into maturity and we can see the fall was complete as the first stanza is in past tense. It was completed but we see there is some anxiety about her inner descent and her relationship with the man who pointed out her admirable feminine qualities. We see her doubt expressed in the three questions comprising the second stanza that probe concepts related to inner life through sense and emotion. The third stanza answers the questions of the second and whatever doubts she has about her fall via her wild imagination she is able to contain and she confesses to the man she wants and appreciates his acceptance. The poem ends with a coda that is introduced by a colon and that any doubt or anxiety was only a product of her vivid imagination. She shares (with you) that she is happy and aware that she is both the traveler and the traveled rough terrain of maturing: “Your acceptance pleases me since / All are me most honestly and strangely.")
Surviving those prejudices and all the rules at the university, having a poem chosen for publication internationally as well as one of my soft sculptures chosen to be in an invitational at MoMA on the main concourse, and acing honors classes and graduating with a 3.8, I thought my life was set. Stop laughing :) I was still young. Since then, I have had my poetry published locally and internationally, a couple of short stories published an a couple of anthologies, and a third short story that won first place in a science-fiction competition and paintings selling when I didn't post NFS next to the title. My most recent poem, Mazatlan in October, published November 2014, was picked up and published November 4, 2014 in the Arts and Entertainment section of Mazatlan Daily, Mazatlan, Mexico.
What I hope, what I want, is for all of my art —paintings and writings —to express honest views based on personal experiences. Don't go reading autobiographical into that comment and run to check out everything I've painted and written...I'm not in there, but what I have and do experience I hope are. I'm not saying there are not a couple, a few, pieces that contain a bit of an autobiographical account...but, I don't think anyone will know what those accounts are. Please, just read what I share and enjoy and please, comment if you feel an urge :)
Portraits in Poetry
Mona Arizona, November 2014
Mimi Wolske-Mona Arizona
All Rights Reserved
Places I Haunt
Places I Hide
Once Upon a
Time's
Background by David Flitner