Hour 11
Healing colours
An explosion of yellow and orange helps to
get rid of the darkest depression.
And if we add green, the colour of love
and blue, the colour of the sky,
we will get the perfect healing portrait of nature!
Hour Eleven 2021
The Forest Ranger rarely came into town. For him a skyscraper was giant redwood, or even a giant sequoia in these parts of the Pacific North West. As he walked through the concrete jungle of Seattle, he came upon the famous Space Needle. It was impressive, he thought, stretching his long neck up to see the top. It almost appeared to pierce the dark low hanging clouds. He paid the fare and rode the elevator to the top and wandered the full circumference, along with the other tourists snapping pictures taking selfies. He never carried a camera, and had rarely used his cell phone. The sun broke through and beat down on his tan face, spreading over the entire vista of Seattle. Suddenly, he saw Mt. Rainier in the distance, across the endless array of storefronts. He noticed a gull steal away with a piece of sourdough bread, then a man wearing gumboots walked past with his young daughter carrying a lone Periwinkle.
Saturday Morning Art
POEM 11
It stains my heart with colors mimicking life on my little paint boards, not canvas just small hard paper boards. I’ve had these paints for years, drying into softer hues in their bent metal cups.
My brown speckled bird eggs look like they could hatch any minute, but they are only papier-mâché. Made not by me, no. I got them at the art store in a bin filled
With what-nots.
I must have made my way out here for years, sitting in my rickety bamboo chair at this faded oak table, with the peeling white paint. This back porch has been a
Sanctuary for years. It has been rescreened and rescreened and rescreened.. Now I sit with my blocks of paint and the little silk Ivy and fake moss and pipe cleaners,
About to fill a clay pot with some semblance of nature. As my earbuds stream Les Misérables (the British cast) into my brain. I can smell the chalky water colors as my
Interest wanes. I managed to splash a nondescript yellow flower fuzzy with orange specks onto each board. I got lost in time and produced them in a trance.
Somehow I formed these drops of sunshine onto the boards with my eyes in a myopic glaze. I’ll frame them, to hang above kitchen stove.
HOUR 12 The Roulette of Artistic Rendition
The Roulette of Artistic Rendition
My passion spent upon the ruins of her unadorned flesh,
Eyes willfully burning in the amber conflagration of utmost rage,
Her body the yielding witness to my emotionless onslaught,
Her destruction of that which I deemed innocent, fueling my ignition.
I had watched,
I had observed,
I circled,
I am one in vexation.
We reflected each other’s morbidity,
We sang the tune of bloodied evolution,
We danced at the sight of destructive retribution,
We created from the mold of our own brutalness,
We now shall complete the contest of our spiraling darkness.
She has watched,
She observed,
She circled me,
She is found wanting.
Our absence of that flavorless idea of mercy bound emotion,
Our malevolent and insatiable natures shall circle one another,
Our bodies and will soon be at spinning in grim unison,
Our lives cast at utter odds in the gambit for intended supremacy.
Her ire will come,
Her life now forfeit,
Her body to be broken,
Her existence ended,
Her body rendered,
Her essence revolving.
September 11th
the heavens spread out filled with
glowing sunshine and billowing clouds
painted on a periwinkle canvas
the needle like roofs of towering skyscrapers
played peek-a-boo behind alabaster low floating clouds
but that glorious September day
ended too quickly
the noise too loud for words
the heavens spread out with black smoke
the periwinkle sky filled with ash
the sun shone an eerie glare
the clouds floated like evil dark shadows
the skyscrapers crumbled
lives changed forever
September 11, 2001
never to be forgotten
A Bakery Clerk
twenty minutes to walk to work
I pass by the skyscraper on the corner
not quite my destination just yet
no cloud in the sky
hoping my day is also clear
skipping the storefront
I head straight for the back
greet some coworkers
exchange a good banter
I pull my hair back
at the last possible moment
preferring the freedom
of letting it all down
sourdough fills my nostrils
no complaints on that
as I clock in for another day
selling food to afford food
I spread my stuff
under the till
needing some comforts
to be within reach
as I gulp in
and let out a deep sigh
this is the now
(Poem 11 of Half Marathon)
Hour 10 – In an Expanse, I drown (Image Response)
I disappear into and endless expanse sometimes.
Abstract
Formless
Endless
Connected
The ghosts of my past erased for a moment.
Casually
Fluidly
Absentmindedly
Fluently
At witnessing the small reflection of light in her eyes
Color
Motion
Strength
Soul
I dive deep in to luminous pools of infinity.
……. and in that void, I drown.
10.
Christmas comes as surely as July heat
Things slow to nothing when the frenzy ends
You’re waiting for me in the arrivals lounge
Feels strange to see airports full again
In the crowds I see plenty of first place bad Christmas sweaters
Three glass jars in the carryon bag I carried through two layovers
House careful quotients of nutmeg, and cloves
star anise and snapped cinnamon,
To stir into a simmering California red
With December oranges from the backyard
Maybe it’ll be just cold enough tonight
For mulled wine by L.A. moonlight
The headlights and taillights are cheerful as we drive
LAX to the San Gabriel foothills
Blue against the falling night
Home doesn’t mean what it used to these days
I’m grateful to say: I’m coming home for Christmas
To my love
It’s pizza in our friends home
And a free for all on Christmas morn
the ornaments we bought last year are on the tree swirling “Fuck 2020”
Ranger’s Autumn Duty
Autumn.
A mixed bag for a forest ranger.
Clouds floating over
a periwinkle sky,
no clue they offer
of the danger nearby.
Nature’s golden-green pallet spread
across a pine-needle floor, makes a bed
under trees wrapped in vines of ivy,
touching the sky.
Sensing the air, dusty and dry,
gumboots heavy,
lifeless leaves beat
into the clay beneath his feet.
Ignoring the smoldering stench.
His focus today is to quench
flickering flames, before
they reach a weathered door.