Month: January 2023

Woozily waking and wining,
Sucking cigarette and sighing,
Puffing pipe and perspiring,
The artist readies the brush
Colors clash and resolve
Hues arise and dissolve,
Then the late night push
Coffee commando and smoke
Wraps round the easel with hope
That alights on the face
Of the shepherd in forest faraggio
But he isn’t some late coming Caravaggio
A splash of reddest dawn
Still with multicolored boots on
Mist of sweat around the figure
Tugs down his hat but looks bigger
As the canvas clears and fissures

Gumming the spruce gum
He peered up at the space
Between the leaning trees
The sappy look on his face
The wind making his rain gear flappy
The smell of fresh cut wood
And the hush then as breezes sucked
Up into the hills
His heart fills with a warm pucker to its beating
But the moment too fleeting.

The English man’s tea
Must never be sloshed or dribbled
His lips slip moist and witty
The tea must be stirred
With a wooden dowel
Forbidden is the heat
That provokes no howl

Before the amber Hue
Touches cup’s bottom
The English man slapped
With a rainwashed shoe

Oh river of quivering concoction
Oh paralyzed with paroxysm
Deliver this englishman up for auction

Icy branch drips
Bits of wisdom
Onto snow hollow
–
Squirrel tracks own
Tracks past
–
Sack of flurries burst
By young tree
–
Shadow hurries
Back to bird
Loosed by wind
–

Swift bone ache
Weary pallor
Fevery shakes
Chilly all over
Fleeing in the night
To some strange land
And returning
To the burning
Temple
The pull
Up
Of the wooly
Blanket
To the chin
Feeble grin
Sunken
Into the bed
Grabbing
For pillows

A bonk on the head
A sailing kick
A grab for a rib
A flailing hand-flick
The Magnificent Bumbler
The Infinite Wonder
Roll on the canvas
Foot to the face
Toes to pry loose
Shot to the grill
Spill to the floor
Knot made of ear
Down for the cover

Ale dribbles
The ale bubble
That fills
With his eyes
Looking in
Tries to rise
Wobbling
Cig stubbing
The ash cinder
Flash
Sloppy grin
Toppling
Crash

On the street
On the wind
Spun out of an old spirit
Delirious
No feet
No trace
Folded lace
Greeted
In a frosted over
Window
Ice and powder
For a face

There’s music down the dock ways
The sun isn’t quite risen and I’m thinking
Are you still eating
Canned and frozen
Are you retreating and surprising people
You’ve spoken
The sea moves in its countless ways
Or is it just the waves and I’m wondering
Are you still greeting the day
With your backside
Coming and going like the tide
The light sparkles when you’re way down here
Not quite under the pier and I’m thinking
Are you still drinking and stinking,
Are you even alive there where you
Commanded with a stride
What’s landed on the beach this time

Spice
Or taste
Buds
That grace
Your life
Wood scent
Mouth balm
Calm
Ameliorant
Distant
Fate
Of a meal
Feel
The cinnamon
Sprinkled on
The chin
Not quite
Synonym
Nor
On the tongue