Tag Archives: Poetry

Where We Meet to Eat

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digital image from an oil painting on canvasLanguid Lunches

Sweetly as the day begins,

It cannot reach its finest part

Until that leisured à la carte

Procession of great taste that twins

Fine foods with seasonings and drinks,

With garnish, relish, fetish, fish–

Whatever makes the perfect dish–

‘Til everyone at table thinks

He’s surfeited (at least, quite near),

Whereon the pace grows slower yet,

Chairs get pushed back and belts made loose,

And everyone’s digestive juice

Begins to work on this grand set

Of foods and trimmings at a rate

That makes the luncheon eaters feel

Almost as if another meal

Could fit in with what they just ate–

But since it was so fine, no sweeter

Course could complement the feast,

From boldest spoonful to the least,

So full content is every eater–

So they set down, each one, that spoon,

And smile, and wipe their chins and lips,

And sup no more, not even sips,

Through this delicious afternoon . . . digital image from a mixed media assemblage

How are the Mighty Chopfallen!

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“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” I like to think I have a healthy ego and positive self-image–but I do hope I’m not quite so full of hubris that I can’t admit when I’ve failed or fumbled or simply that I’m simply a silly buffoon, just like pretty much the whole rest of humanity. Yet maybe believing that is just another sample of my shallow vanity. I don’t expect you to accept my assessment, just that you’ll give me a bit of leeway, considering that there may not be a lot of room in my tiny mind for ordinary wisdom and classiness. Not really sure I can get a completely clear picture from my angle here on the floor. I’ve fallen, but I can get up!digital painting from an oil pastel originalTo be Honest

It’s true that I have fallen down
more often than a chef’s soufflés
(or poor Pierre crashed into town
in air-ballooning’s early days,
before he noticed heat would crown
the heights but cold air caused malaise . . . )
Meanwhile, I stumble, flop and crash,
careening like a loosened wheel,
my dignity thrown out like trash–
but had I grace and nerves of steel,
I’d likely still keep this my fashion–
nothing better proves I’m real.

Narcissical

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acrylic on paperWhen man’s-man men find womankind

especially spectacular,

it often seems their taste’s opined

as front-ular or back-ular,

and chicks who eye them back with leers

and rudeness too vernacular,

also choose looks, though dudes’ hearts bite

as badly as though Dracula-r.

How can they stand their standards thus

and stoop to stupid gravity

that pulls them down to lower lows

of foolishness, depravity

and such devotion to slick looks

that any cranial cavity‘s

acceptable, as long as ‘hot’

and needs no jot of suavity?

Must we accept only the slinky,

cute, or babe-a-licious?

Such flimsy taste is quite a waste,

and creepingly pernicious

when all the future of mankind

becomes so superstitious

as to attach to looks and limbs

values so shallow? Vicious!acrylic on paper

Whether Discomposed or Decomposing

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mixed media + digital imagePardon My Snoring

My lead-lined eyelids will insist it’s time to go to sleep,

So don’t be too insulted if I leave to count some sheep;

I find you fascinating and quite scintillating too,

So please don’t take it wrong if I should conk right out on you.

Your dazzling personality and brilliance are so bright

It pains me to, but go I must, and bid a fond Good-Night!

Pay no attention to the way I’m backing out the door,

And know your super-excellence could never be a bore.

I sigh, I yawn! But, for all that, it can’t be you that tires:

I’m sure it seldom happens that your audience expires!oil pastel on paper

Naturally, Reawakening

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mixed media + textNaturally

Following the steps of Nature, in my time I’ll go to sleep

and slough off my human stature, an appointment I must keep

whether soon or late or sudden, whether willingly or no,

taking nothing, I am bidden, as to dust–beyond–I go,

to a deep cellular cellar, shut from day and gone from night,

simple mote or something stellar, eternally both dark and bright;

I’ve no grief at this my bedding down to death as time requires,

but will go with no regretting to new lands and distant fires–

or to deep chasms’ silent spaces, nothing moving, nothing moved,

nothing touched by ills or graces or by sweetness I once loved,

for my thoughts will too lie resting, speechless, dreamless, all release;

all exemption now from testing, seamlessly wrapped up in peace–

So I’ll leave you, soft, in quiet

naturally inclined to sigh

with something of

relief, a sigh yet

not of sorrow,

when

I diemixed media + textReawakening

Winter now is past, forgotten swiftly as the melting snow,

as the things that children know slip away in quilted cotton

while they sleep: tomorrow, calling, beckons them to newer days

and to pleasures yet a haze on the edge of nighttime’s falling–

sorrow dissipates, as ices rimming rivers melt apace

in spring’s warm return to grace the Earth with all her sweet devices

Love, awake! The gentle keening of the season’s herald bird

is from barren branches heard, calling them to leafy greening,

calling from the snows of death all who have lain sleeping, dormant,

seasoned with dark winter’s torment,

to return to life

and breath

As the Evening Blooms

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There are moments when one simple thing–the appearance of its shadow under a boat in a clear lake, kids on the playground chanting a silly song, the smell of potatoes roasting in the oven as you walk in the door at the end of the day–stops you in your tracks with a pang of intense gratitude. You’re filled with wonder that something you may have seen or heard or felt a thousand times before can suddenly arrest you and fill you with such an unmitigated thrill. Your internal sky clears, and you remember how it felt to believe without question in today, in tomorrow.

digital imageOne of the situations that is most able to evoke such potent magic for me is that sweet transitional time when dusk is just about to fall. I’ll be going along the road on the way home, and the peculiar slant of the light makes every color twice as brilliant and saturated as it ought to be, and the clarity of the view seems to intensify so that I feel certain if I looked I could see individual grass-leaves at a hundred yards, maybe even the gossamer lacewing perched on a single blade. I open the window of the car and think that the robin warbling its evensong could be two miles distant and I would hear it just as sharply in its unimpeded clarity, maybe even a hundred miles. Have I fallen into a miracle myself? Become some sort of supernal being?digital painting

No, but at this hour and in this light, the new, dense tapestry of wild spring greens lining the side of the road becomes a moment closer to the perfection of heaven’s glow and I feel as though I myself might just take wing. As the evening starts to fall, this glow is rich with grace and filled with dreams of coming good and present hope. And along with every little else, I know that this beautiful glorious nothing of a thing will happen another time, and not when it will come or what it means, only that life is loaded up with marvelous moments of sweet and poignant joy.

Fantasia on Color Theory

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digitally doctored acrylic on canvas painting

Color Infusions

Velour of the lawn is deep, deep green,

sun breaking sideways grey

or silvery-white, like the moon of night

pulled over the edge of day–

The mirroring water Caribbean blue

on the patio table and chair

to reflect the sky or the azure eye

of a hoverer in the air–

So winter to spring is giving ground

by violet margins and rose,

to erase from sight the black and white

of the season’s reticent clothes.digitally doctored acrylic on canvas painting

Flying Colors

On the horizon I spotted a kite

That swung in the wind to the left and the right

And splashed all its colors, exuberant paint

To swirl in the sky with a dip and a feint

Toward the grass, toward the sun, to a hill, to a tree,

A brilliant kaleidoscope there just for me

And the child whose hand guided the string of the kite

As it painted our world with new colors and light

Dollar Signs on My Mind

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While I am busy preparing to open an online store to offer some of my creative output for sale as prints, T-shirts, book material, and so forth, naturally my brain is calculating how many itty bitty royalty payments it will take to, say, pay off an eensy-weensy portion of the hours-days-years spent producing said items. Fortunately for me, y’all know I’m a terrible mathematician, so there’s obviously no point in delving so very far or seriously into that topic or tragedy will surely ensue. I’m not fishing for compliments here, just stating the cold hard facts of the rarity of cold hard cash when it comes to art. Many of you friends of mine are fellow artists, so I know that you know just what I mean. Nothing particularly fishy about it. So instead of whimpering needlessly, I will just share one of my silly little verses with you and call it a day. A much cheerier way to close St. Patrick’s Day than worrying about the Bankin’ o’ the Green. Goodnight, my fine friends! Smooth sailing ahead for all of us!digital artwork

The Gifts of True Love

In lieu of parties, holidays

And feasts and fests, vacation days

And celebrations—rather, heck,

Than all together—send a cheque!

A party lasts mere days or hours

And Wilts like last September’s flowers–

Festive events and gifts all fade—

No joy compares to getting paid!

So if you want to be recalled

And loved as one who has enthralled,

Forget the cakes, balloons and flash—

Just send me some heartwarming cash!

It’s Good to be Otherworldly

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At times, time should just stop. Hold its breath, keep confidence with every secretive thing because some little happening occurs, a tiny treasured thing appears, as small as dust in air perhaps but so perfect in its lack of discipline as to be solace beyond words, a wonder like a young child’s hair lit by a momentary ray of sunlight to become more beautiful than all the votive flames that ever lit the night, like a killdeer’s evening call fluting out from where it hides in the tall grass.

graphite drawing

. . . an hour in which enforced quiet time in a waiting room is transformed into time for invention in the sketchbook . . .

Let the treasury of life be honored by our awed obeisance, however brief, as we take our meditative pause to contemplate those little motes of sweetness that make up, in total, something so ethereal and grand–the sharp, resinous perfume rising from a path through piny woods on a sun-baked day; that bright mercurial flash of a school of tiny fry all turning in the shoals at once, glinting; an amorous bird showing off its vocal flashiness from a leafy grove across the way . . .

graphite drawing

. . . a piece of rustic dark bread with butter melting into it . . . .

May we never forget to stop, if only for that little moment, to absorb the pleasurable surprise of living in the midst of millions of small miracles each night and every day, even if they’re often lost to us as too minute to catch our notice. The air we breathe is redolent with them–each step we take can draw us further into that precise great incident of wonder that should startle every heart into eternal admiration.

It’s All Downhill from Here

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colored pencilGhoulish Delight

I rustle my hands in taloned glee

Because the deadly recipe

From neither pots nor spoons nor pans

But sort of cauldron-cooked began

To boil and burble, burn and bake

And make a horrid bellyache

In which I openly rejoice

From the bottom of my heart at the top of my voice

Since it eats at the spot whence woe betides

I mean, my enemy’s insides

I hate to admit that it drives me nuts

How I loathe the cretin’s creepy guts

So I will make like a fleet of moles

And bore them full of a flock of holes

Filling me full of ironic glee

And comeuppance for him who so bores me

Since that’s why I really stayed in school

To grow up and be a bad little ghoul

And lest you forget yourself, sneer or scoff

Be nice to me or I’ll bump you offcolored pencil

So Soon Begins the End

Upon my word! This is a fix

I never thought to find me in–

at least not find for five or six

more decades, when my hair’d grown thin

and belly fat, and joints grown weak

and brain grown mushier than it had

been yet, but I age as we speak–

so rapidly–why, this is Bad!

I never dreamed that I would age

before a hundred years or so,

and then, at most, to turn more sage;

oh, this is a grubby way to go!