Artist leaving residence

The artist leaves the building.
This time he is
wrapping up
his canvases, colors, and
hairy implements.

He loads and stacks,
lines and lays his tiles, some gently
until tightly packed
for transport.

Some of them,
he jams in just seeming
to fill in
any open spaces he sees.

His neighbor, the lady
living below him,
paints furiously-impressionism,
she is no artist.

She tries to finish
her own piece
before he is gone-
before all falls muted,

from above.
Heaven forbid,
the muse is moving on
to another scene, landscape

perch, set of white walls,
half empty canvases,
or another artistic
aesthetic altogether.

Painting by Thomas Prichard Rossiter, 'A Studio Reception, Paris' c. 1841,[CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Marker

It occurs to me that a threshold

is essential for crossing over

leaving one place, entering another.

A transference or transcendence

if done intentionally

the past stays outside.

It occurs to me rather suddenly,

despite making plans and beds,

tucking corners and ducking blows,

this was all about some body, 

a place to rest

and what to do with what remains.

I have reconsidered 

that it may be the most selfless thing

to be buried in a plot, or swallowed by a sinkhole, 

instead of scattered

to sea, disbursed widely

without

a mark(er), a fold or ripple,

a place

where others can go

to meet with Memory.

This is the last thing I can do

for those whom I held the door for,

for those that may be missing and seeking

my presence-

No body

needed more than a place to rest. 



Painting By John Singer Sargent [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons, 'Open Doorway, Morroco, c 1879.

Glass making

All over the place

pour, poor women and wine,

overflown lips,

she sees her particulates

in liquid stains

held over old flames.

There is no innocent steam,

the trees that finally fell to timber

under scurrying winds collecting

clay clouds, pulling out roots

by the palmful in a disintegration of states.

She seemed mad.

That insistent sun rose its entitled torch,

humming, ho-hum-mums-the-blue iris to day, to

dew, and do the birds hone a tone in

one place, canary, and crow

cemetery or church, middle C

night and gale mocking us.

She giggles at others tripping over

stone heads

and bumping toes on crosses;

no body ever saw her,

smiling some where upon

she cried upon recognizing herself

as naked truth.

It hurts to linger too long

exposed against acclimation.

We shatter in the cold.

We were always restructuring and stacking

cardboard and compressing pixels

over old times, keeping alive,

ashes and splashes

mixing and folding us back in.

This con-trap-she's in,

clearly cracking

from such extremes

of rising and falling

body temperature.

Such is life.

Photo By SMU Central University Libraries [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Where Are You?

Are you moving?
              or just re-locating?
I hope you remember
              to pack all of you...

Or perhaps that's exactly
              what you've hoped to have left behind-
of course starting over
              is nothing truly anew.

Maybe you just need a vacation
              or a change of view
perhaps try re-decorating
              with things that are not really you.

Just don't set up shops
               or make your bed with security blankets-
the stock you take
                fluctuates in interest.

Why do we bother
                 to clean
pick-up, dust and preen?
                 Oh, how these routines are so boring!

Perhaps that's why we travel and plan-
                 do all that you can
Change it up, try something new-
                 feel free to live richly
and take it all in.

But as you lay
                 down your precious head
wherever you choose to keep your bed
                 rest assured you're always home
no matter where-
                 how far or long you may roam.



Image by William Merritt Chase via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain. "Young woman before the Mirror" circa 1900.