Consider the Artist

You’d do anything to be considered an artist.
Anything.
You told me the pain you’ve inflicted on yourself and your friends
In order to get the perfect brush stroke,
Perfect flash,
Perfect smudge.
Throw away your jewelry
For a hermit house life
But keep your watch in a drawer
To keep your mind.
You unhinged your jaw
For a mouthful of charcoal.
Dry lips sputter and reverse
Onto a canvas.
Stand back and study,
Black lines, Rorschach shapes and
Empty dusted spaces.
Wrinkle your brow, stamp out the picture.
Look at your feet and cut off a toe.
You’d do anything to be considered an artist.

apartment profile

August 12th 2009

We’re hiding in a new place
where no bricks, nor traffic can distract our waves.
No sparks traverse these walls,
only flames on stalks mar the paint.
A web from the ceiling collects our things,
from glory hats to acrobats with thread bobs in between.
On entering the room, there’s a tangy smell,
soon hampered by the dust and smoke,
but brought back up by peels in colors from side to side.
Clay for our stick-ash and a bed on the rug,
everything we need is presented.
It stripped from us the will to buy, the will to walk
and the need for change.
In minutes, we knew that we wanted to add our stain.
We wanted to mark like the flames
and we wanted the untainted rooms
to drink our taint.

arctic bones

Arctic Bones

You smell like sugar cane.
The raw, coarse scent strung between my nose and tongue
Was carried on the ship powered by the wind and rain,
From whose decks you wished to be flung.

Fog crept over the salty seas,
Brine water soaking your dress.
The dampening cloth clung to your knees,
And your sharpened heart it did possess.

I picture you standing at the bow,
Fists clenching the corroded wood,
So far from the field and the farmer’s plow.
So far from the place where we both stood.

Now the warm air caresses your cheek,
And closing your eyes, you think.
Perhaps the skeleton of the boat is rotting and weak,
And the ship will surely sink.

The destination is still a looming mystery,
For you boarded the ship with no shore in mind.
Maybe awaiting you is a land of history,
With a buried treasure for you to find.

You mirror the waves lapping the frame;
With a silky exterior that will drag you under
And leave you open for blame,
A prime target for thunder.

You yearn to throw yourself into the tossing grey ocean,
To sink down among the sandy stones.
But the heat and the ice would cause a commotion,
Because you’ve got arctic bones.