Sunday, September 25, 2011

without painting

nothing makes sense without it

"holding this brush
against a stranger's wall
reminds me of who I am"

a painter

what does the keyboard think
of paint?

every week empties
strategy of all work these days

but you have another plan
to sit or stand before a river inside
and paint it

a painter








Saturday, September 24, 2011

week's end

at week's end
tired
sick
alert

how to classify

fear of speaking publicly
unengaged and sleeping
use of prohibited devices

home
phone
aware

how to integrate

nephew's infected leg
a husband's two-faced heart
the rise and ebb of vanity

 at week's end



Sunday, September 18, 2011

pictures from Canada

it's a
limp
magical
relic

next to
narrative

mountain water in the corner
by the long green view
out above the

chest
best left empty

one
flooded trees
continents awash
watching lights
ascend
sink
blink

two
the torso
of a young man
without genitals

three
he
is
raven haired
same-lipped
youth
eyes
see
me

and there behind you
the wooden
tabernacle
that
toothed
fired and
thawed
feeds you forward


Samuel Johnson

"That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner."
                                              - Johnson: Letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds




born this day in 1709

said to be the last
great autodidact

lexicographer
word stalker
author

his definitions delightful
his table manners atrocious

no oranges in the trees for him
but bleak Highland oats
and thistled wit

he regretted his mistakes
bravely continued to make them
humbled not cowed
spoke too much aloud

married
him young to her
found compulsive sound
years later
old wife's death

his tongue undone

love
whittled him

shaved down to widower
and stroke
he
left life
cold

old man

wished he'd remembered
sooner








Saturday, September 17, 2011

everyone wishes

everyone wishes

for happiness
love
a good job
a smart child
chocolate
graceful aging
swift end
a mourned passing
remembrance
remembrance


some  thread of
legacy


a few decades
of flowers graveside

a saved photo

an inherited eye color
or nose slope

but not
the anger or flawed
profession
the savage remark
the slap

everyone wishes

for the thing which enobles
hides
excludes
the raw excursion
that it really is

this
this
this is
this is not what

everyone wishes




espero un poco

mi felicitad
dependamente

¿que?
¿que?

¿Cuando es?

Mio Dio
Mi Viva
mi
mi
alma profundo

llorando

llorando

llorando

Friday, September 9, 2011

yangjae



picture this

dusky thank you in Inupiak
light in Irish
cornea Dansk
soul in Spanish
Mandarin sour or Muslim
Korean sweet teacher
cold lion Arabic
or bear?
Korean bear man

a tree a bough a breeze

movement trips a switch

lights up
language
landscape


painted participle

the name for
how many

where I am
where you are


picture

this

not enough

time to paint
paint enough
money to travel
travel enough
energy to exercise
energy enough
never is not is
enough
no to yourself

yourself enough

what stops them
themselves
they are not enough

if it's not deep enough
dig deep enough

not as if

time money energy
never is
as never does
and
never is

not enough
is not


enough
enough.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

admit

aplomb?
no assurance of
absolutes
that is
one is left to
admit
doubt
what has been done
to admit that

how
did
you
know


birthday

blue cake
in five languages

blue eyes
asleep

blue sky
eye
sea


you



Tuesday, September 6, 2011

walk

first
wind
furled grey
last green
sky
sky
blue
cloud white
cloud grey
pink light
two hours sleep
it all falls down
to this
sunblind dusk
black leaves
halflit moon
cool skies indigo
glow
know
less
endless less
walk
home

Sunday, September 4, 2011

time management

if it is
then
will
it be
see
how
one follows
still
one
one
zed
led
in
in
without
stopping
release
that you
into the work
again

live
live
in
and
breathing
breathing
stake your
awakening
upon it.

braird

braird
bairn
both
sprouting
from
pursed lips
above
ground
round
appear
to me,
childless,
promising

geese

cries south
flies
flies
river
river
cloud
filled field
of vision

66 degrees

autumn moon
first quarter

my own misdirection
(memory)
does more harm
than
a sudden drop in temperature
(prescience)


Thursday, September 1, 2011

Eid

darkening garden skies
moon too soon
an error
of
eyelight

enlighten
abstain
purify

fast
feast

too fast

give

metaphrase


active
irregular

transposition

other

other

another