24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
“You’ll be together forever.”
Here lies the soul of a good man,
the best of them all.
And though he was cursed with seeing death,
I loved him as a son.
His name was Odd Thomas,
and he’s gone to his Stormy girl,
though I miss him terribly,
I know he’s fine, way above.
Fully smooth and fully blue,
that’s my boy.
And when I too am finally gone,
I hope I may see him too.
Children in raincoats
Eating steamed tomatoes
And putting frogs in jars
Innocence is a mystery.
Dear Mary: I want to come back to your painting Little Girl in a Blue Armchair. To talk to you about Edgar. Rumor had it for a long while – perhaps even fifty years – you’d be amazed at how stubborn Parisian gossip is – that you were his student. You, a woman – and him, the big shot male artist introducing you to the basics of Impressionism. As if you needed instructing or help in applying color. How wrong-headed!
We both know you were already established – own galleries /agents/sales – when you met Edgar. Equals. Artistic kin. And yet, I’m ashamed and embarrassed to read in your letter to your dealer, that dear Edgar not only found this painting “good” but that he even “advised me on the background, he even worked on the background.”
I’ve since heard that Manet once took it upon himself to rework much of one of your friend Berthe’s paintings.
But who am I to judge what Edgar and you did. Can’t equals be collaborators?
After all, it was yours to begin with.
Turnabout is fair play. Don’t let the locked doors and
Pitch Black interiors deter you. As long as there are
Still embers left in the fire, no one can ever hold you back.
Take what little you have left, make it your own and see
How far that will take you. The rest is just restraining propaganda.
Never took a liking to or understood the term
But I knew well the purpose of its composition, to make others squirm
Nonetheless
I must protest
My work was executed with fine precision
Every sling a premeditated decision
That no other would ever match
My art was, is beyond the measures of the past
I carefully cut those corroded cadavers
Only to have my craft be honed down to an unscrupulous mad hatter?
Who are they to dub me a flittering clipper?
I am far too slicker
To be a mere evening thriller
My hands never faltered as I sliced precisely right
Ha, let my craftsmanship speak for itself
For to this day, not one has yet
To forget
And figure
Who, from HELL, is Jack the Ripper?
…but I need a shower
Trust me
you’ll be much more willing
to take me personally afterward
if you want
no pressure
I’ll stop talking now
*****
Where do you keep the soap?
I move through the wide plains
Around narrow hills even
Down a mountain and
Sometimes through a valley.
Skipping through forests or
Gliding along desert winds
They call me the wanderer
A traveller without an ally.
10 PM Twelfth Poem: Bending Light
Pure light coursing through
unaware and bending light
arrays of color delight
Some are green some are blue
Some are of the right ‘hot’ hue
How are hue today
You just might say
Where’s your light bending
What kind’ve light you sending
Creating rows of spectrums
Marching to own drums
Oh I see it here it comes!
Do I need those 3D glass
Viewing rays as they pass
Do I just ignore
Wanting not to see more
Each unique in its own scale
Within the source and from the pale
Variegated they set sail
Mottled dappled flecked and pure
One endures
Arched and shapes born
Through lives upheld, lives torn
Can you hear the call?
It’s time to view it all.
A quite summer morn
Some dogs bark,
A rooster crows:
A flock of birds, a flock, suddenly(3)
Fly, fly, take to sky
Far, far, far they fly and fly
Far, far, far they fly (2)
and the sun sighs
in quest so high(2)
Where, o, where are you fly
Why, o, why live this lie
Why o why on this paradise
you live this lie, you live this lie
A flock of birds, a flock , suddenly(3)
Fly, fly, fly, take to sky
And disappear out of sight
Almost Sleeping
Head feels heavy eyes all but closed
I yawn trying to keep myself awake
Just a few more hours
And then I can sleep all day