The Rain Barrel

Photo by elena

I know what it feels like

The golden, the orange, the red,

The colors that reach across a cloudy sky

And define that dangerous line

The space before the ground

The perilous feeling

Falling down…

I know the flames of feeling

Every bit of the green bleeding out into red veins

Streaming across the afternoon skies

Like a tantrum

I know that voice that never whispers

Hoping to land somewhere

Hoping to land

And I know the feeling of cold

I know the feeling of mingling on the cold dark edge

And feeling every bit of color dissolve

Across that surface so indifferent

Embracing and drowning every peace of the skeleton

That was

Remembering the sky

Remembering the limb that once connected

Now mourning, distant, unfeeling

I know what it feels to drown

Beneath the darkness

Each competing for the last bits of light

Dark, shapeless ghosts

Rise and fall

I know the steel walls

And the deep black sides

That keeps us silent

That keep our voices muffled

Under the surface

Remembering fall

Remembering the height of the sky

The blue, the rich colors

Before all color faded and died…

(A painting coming soon)

New Years Day

The Angel Trumpet recoils, the last bit of leaves withered and gray.

A garden sighs in the early morning breezes

New Years Day

The sky is pale, the way I feel, the sadness of the year in deconstruction

Every bit of its skeleton, tucked neatly away

I’m awake, watching the birds

New Years Day

What grand structure to erect, what color to choose, thoughts to connect

It all begins with habit and intention today.

Make your list and start the next year

New Years Day

A Revolution of Sorts

Every crisis invades our psyche. We are constantly reminded that we are not safe, that at any moment tragedy will happen to even the best people. We watch as innocence is destroyed and we raise our children in the midst of the devastation.

We have a media that wants us to act and a government that wants us to leave them to spend as much as they need or create what ever law they deem necessary and we need to enjoy the Internet, follow the Kardashians and surf on the best new IPhone.

There is a constant invasion of our well being. The sky has been falling ever since 911- we’ve been waiting for the dollar to crash, warned to save gold, water, or even back in Y2K to buy a shelter, grow our own food.

All of this media frenzy does well for many making fortunes on the impending struggles we as Americans face. The media loves their high ratings as we sit foaming at the television afraid of the next impending disaster.

The unit that would usually give us strength and security has dissolved out before we even realized we needed them. The community, family, close friends all have been replaced with a collective, heavily connected community that has replaced true emotion and connection with hype and fanfare.

I think it is time we as Americans start to regroup-they’re not going to suggest it for us. They have better things they want from us like votes, ratings and control of everything from our health care to our energy consumption.

We need to start betting on us and our communities,  instead of the mouthpieces in Washington and those media yelling fire in our crowded elevator communities.

We need to start thinking for ourselves and our families. Turn off the television, start playing board games, the evil and tragedies may find us but all we do waiting for them is waste the precious time we have.

It’s time for a revolution of sorts, where we as people start taking responsibility for ourselves, our children, our schools. We need to start living smaller but enjoy more of what we have.

We need to start building a shield one that instead of protects our borders or our ozone layer, one that protect our families and our communities from fear, either justified or amplified by agenda.

We need to start living more significant lives and instead of worrying about changing the world, why don’t we try to change the little world that surrounds us, treat our neighbors better, interact with each other more and share with each other, let’s just pretend for the next year, there is hope and we are in control of anything we need to change.

A Field

You’ve watched the black turn to green

You’ve watched the struggles of lives

between

June to July

And December

Did you keep a journal

Will you still remember

This was your life

You pray for another season

That you might get it right

One more try

To watch as yellow turns to black

And black back to green

You’ve watched the beauty

And the violence everyday

Did you pick a flower

Struggle with a thorn

I wish you all the pain

You could afford

A field with lessons

Without words

That a life could be explained

In one season

That we would not take for granted

The next

The sunflowers now closing their eyes

The field, a corpse, a swarm of flies

The summer heat

The winter chill

Do you remember the year

And all its lessons

Where were you at the start?

At the end?

Wouldn’t you love just one more year

just to Try it again

Portrait of a Son

This portrait I will never sign, it was never mine. Even though the colors are familiar and the strokes are uniquely a piece of me, I have barely laid a brush on the canvas. In fact, more of my flaws you will see than any of my strengths.

I have stood in awe, as this work became itself. I have not even the slightest knowledge nor understanding of the medium and yet I welcomed the idea of creating it, a small piece of the artist is that which is created as just a whisper, not too much detail and yet enough to clarify the artists vision.

In this particular work, I must admit the painting has taught me more than I could ever explain. Now as it becomes theirs’, a work that will be shared with the world, I seem to be more clueless than ever before.

I can’t articulate the purpose or vision; it is so far beyond the comprehension of a mere artist. The strokes I have taken in recent seem more discordant than ever, it seems I can only damage the canvas and being an artist and a creative person seems more like a detriment than a virtue.

I am clumsy, my colors are unsure and even worse than all of this, I am quickly becoming irrelevant,  yet the finishing touches beg for my attention. I keep my distance, I need to these days because the closer I get to perfecting the masterpiece, the more I realize it has nothing to do with me and it is not mine. So I won’t be signing this canvas, I wont be taking a bow to the audience no more than I could stand in judgment of my lack of skill-the painting has become itself, I have been barely present and yet the lack of myself has meant everything in its creation.

I won’t sign this work, I will leave it to the audience to decide and they will finish it. They will never see the beauty I see, nor understand its amazing virtue-only I can see this and my deep love for it has made me the worst critic. 

I can only judge myself in its shadow and I never come up as nothing but a hack painter, a novice, a word smith without words to describe… so this painting, this beautiful amazing painting will never be signed.