As My Tears Run Red

Every night her struggles survive One fragile heart saddened by an unthinkable specter Her wish A faded memory staining the land Her fears A nightmare thrust upon the world An unwanted son Waiting quietly to pierce the darkness Surviving to fracture the boundaries of reality The cloven hooves The chilling howl Echoes of time not forgotten Many search the evergreens calling young Leeds Sweep into our dreams Comfort us with your soft whispers Let our destinies unite His presence reminds some of perfection Yet, to others, it is a vision of evil Every night he struggles with the loneliness His mind wandering the pathways that will be Hoping to find the love of a mother lost Or a life never shared His torment, in this world we now share Within the reeds he calls home Myth or legend Devil or angel Forever he will survive A lone link to days of yore A dark shadow in the fabric of the whispering pines Following his go...

The first five editions of the Jersey Devil Bottle Collection Project that I have been working on are finally listed at my Etsy page . The idea of this project is a bit unique, providing a way to recycle and clean the Pine Barrons at Leeds Point and promote the history of the land. I am sure most everyone has heard of the Jersey Devil, the winged creature that has been tormenting the Garden State and the Pine Barrons for almost Three centuries. This line of OOAK bottles was created to pay homage to this mysterious creature. Each bottle that is used as the base material of the sculpture has been discovered and rescued from Leeds Point, where in 1735 Mother Leeds gave birth to a 13th child, the famed Jersey Devil that escaped into the fabric of of Americana.

With all of the snow that has been blanketing us here in New Jersey, I was able to complete the first three Jersey Devil bottles. While, these differ from the prototype that made a frame to display my poem, The Devil Endures, they all have something different and unique in their make-up.  To me, these bottles, collected during a NJ Devil hunt in November 2009, are now a great token to remind people of what lurks in the Pine Barrons. The first bottle completed is decorated by liquid latex and has a horse-like or Baphomet-like head. The quote, "An unwanted son, Waiting quietly to pierce the darkness, Surviving to fracture the boundaries of reality, The cloven hooves, The chilling howl, Echoes of time not forgotten," from the poem The Devil Endures lines the front. The second bottle created has a rockabilly-like feel  and has a rendition of the classic Jersey Devil picture on  the fron with the famed quote from Mrs. Leeds, " If I have a...