The Painter

He climbs the ladder, paintbrush in hand
Ready to coat the weathered years
That crack and peel from frost and heat and rain.
Rivers of reds and greens, blues and soft dove-greys
Drench my skin in laughter
And drip onto the tile spreading music
Throughout my veins
While little victories from battles waged
Against a cavalcade of mediocrity
Climax and parachute our runaway train
Onto an island murmuring endearments
Under its white sands, lulling us to rest.

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On Her Birthday

Anchored to earth
Your Emerald heart
Inspires loyalty true

Sapphiric light
Enthrones your crown
Wisdom bedecked in blue

Your Passion red
Enflames our lives
A ruby through and through

Pearlescent friend
Of faith and hope
A Virgo jewel are you.

Work of Art

As dusk stretches renting day to night,
My head, dreamy from liquid clouds of heat,
Floats in rippling colours while
My hands on the wheel slide
Slowly to six o’clock.

Fresh white flashes
Invade my oblivion
Illuminating tawny memories
Spiraling to escape.
Laughter reverberates
Echoing metal’s collapse
Embracing my legs, hips, chest, arms.

Weightless, my shadow
Melts in the remnants,
Baptized and blessed
By a brocade of airy breath and rain.

A newly sown soul claims my spirit
As her own.
Emerging from the mist she imbibes
Drizzling drops, imbuing senses and
Rendering me timeless.

Water and Air

A whimsic bird uncaged she flies alone
Across a moonlit earth til dawn’s face shone,
She’s carved from air, released to shape the winds,
Change their direction as befits her whims.
Beneath her beating wings in waters dark
Through currents cuts a silent, lonesome shark
Who free to churn the oceans in pursuit
Of life, the waves he thrashes; they dilute
In air above. Two elements unite;
A hurricane impassioned they alight
On land. In time distance between them wanes
Transforming storm to fog, yet two remain.
When sun arises steaming them with heat,
They dissipate; water and air repeat.

My Blues

Wine in my veins
Soaks me in fields of ripened grapes
Hewn from seeds of blues
That play on my strings,
Traveling up and down the frets.

But the bass line, the steady rhythm
That sustains me,
Resounds in recesses of want
That become a need to
Be the instrument
That feeds the soul.

Fragments

Laid out on a slab of broken tears
I rolled to my side feeling the shards
Piercing the emptiness in
My back
My arm
My neck
My thigh
It shouldn’t have hurt
A hollow vessel
But each wedge
Each grain of ice
Cut

Instead of crying out
I lapsed into the beauty of feeling
Something
Anything
To fill the casket that bled
Onto a white beach
And washed into the Gulf

Heat
Void of color
Seeped into my remains
And the light that burst
From its abundance
Lifted my ruins
Into the sea breeze
And delivered the fragments
To the sun.

Touched

Was I touched
When I hummed a tune
I had never before heard,
When I swayed in a dance
I had never before seen,
When I plucked strings on an instrument
I had never before played,
Or when I loved a soul
I had never before known?

Empty Hand

I opened my hand but found it empty
Until I saw the woman from church across the parking lot
Who needed help with her groceries
She had an old cart whose wheel stuck
So I picked up the two bags and slung the cart across my back
Like a guitar I used to have as a teenager
I smelled apples and cherries and pecans in one bag and told her so
My gait slowed to match her shuffle as the sun warmed our heads
Blessing our conversation til we arrived at her door
When she invited me into her house
I crossed the threshold and was bathed in coolness like Southern sweet tea
Which she poured as I put away her goods in cupboards and an old icebox
That sat in the corner like Methuselah waiting for the flood
We sat at her table, linoleum floor peeling a little near the leg of my chair
Ice cubes clinking as they melted and hit the insides of the glasses
I stood up when she pushed her chair back but
She told me to set and wait a spell
On the counter I noticed her pocketbook and thought to tell her
She shouldn’t leave it out in the open
Where anybody might come see it through the window
In her hands was a beat-up little box which she laid in front of me
Taking off the lid she showed me one by one
Four photographs, edges curling
As she gently extracted each one
Tears pooled in my eyes
The same face swam in front of me in each picture
Sometimes smiling, sometimes serious-like
But always in a crisp, dark uniform and cap
I know she was talking to me but I couldn’t hear the words
Cuz my ears pounded
Next thing I knew she placed in my hand a star hung on a blue ribbon and
Curling her fingers over mine to close my hand
She kissed my cheek and told me to come back any time
And she’d make me an apple pie
I’m not sure how I made it back home next to the rail station
But when I arrived I pulled back the curtain
Rummaging through my bag I pulled out
A cap
Just like the one in the pictures
And putting it on
I lay down
Listening to the trains pass
And held on to that star
My hand empty no more.

Sarabande

Accustomed to the quiet sounds of night
That bleed into the morning hours, I wake
Upon the changing rhythm of a breath
Caressing skin. My lips I part to take
A sip from wells that quench the fire within
And harness promises murmured in thirst.
But waves of dawning emptiness I sense
As windows to the soul reveal a verse
of ghostly sorrow, tear-stained clouds of pain.
The breath now choking back a sob so deep
Inhales instead the stale and smoke-filled scent
Of reckless sex and harsh regrets I’ve reaped.
I slowly lift the money from the stand
And clothe myself for my next sarabande.

Wireless

I fell into my computer yesterday
Once inside wireless vibrations pounded through my body
Weightless I watched particles of myself
Float in a sea of foreign hieroglyphs
My hand reached out from some unknown location to connect the dots of my outline
But it couldn’t reach far enough
My heart was thousands of miles ahead of  my head
I panicked thinking I would never recover it before I died
And then where would I be?
But I realized someone else held it tenderly
Someone I couldn’t see
Someone patient who knew I’d catch up some day
Until then I would have to collect little pieces of myself
Scattered bits of longing and laughter and love
Putting them into place before I could climb out the other end
And be whole once more.