Perfect Service

Perfect service,
and the brush of a stranger's hair
on your arm.
And wanting to write like Hemmingway.
And wanting to write like Joni Mitchell.
And wanting to paint as if their words have stumbled somehow
from exhausted presses,
whose letters no longer say
but only mean,
to the biggest empty page that they could find.

Wanting to paint as if you have
forever to understand these words
not scrawled across the canvas
but embedded on,
embossed upon
its surface. Wait forever
for the perfect sleepless night to take you
out of skin and meaning
of the darker sky and room,
the bed too warm,
too wide.

Wade
across the stillness
of a house with no one in it
save for Ludo, and he's sleeping
to a painting full of circles
looking forward to the spring.

The Wolves of his Words

June 2010

18'' x 40''

Mixed media on canvas

As If it were Yours to Give

May 2010

48'' x 30''

Mixed media on canvas

And Worried by My Calm

And Worried by My Calm

January 28, 2010

48'' x 30''

Coffee, paper, gold leaf on canvas.

See 4th Act, part ii for the reference.

Far Poles

Melancholy at canvas at two in the morning, will I hope desperately in vain for the creak of floorboards from the far end of the house?

i)
There is no greater distance than between the far poles of our house,
I spinning at one,
while at the other you turn in your sleep, unaware,
every drip of pale tinted water a prayer
(if you can believe I'd believe in prayer).

By the time each makes its way undeniably down the canvas
I've lost you all over again.
Calling is to lose you.
How not to want you?

ii)
Is this how we'll be in the spring,
me sitting spinning at my canvas while the earth slowly turns you
irrevocably away
toward morning,
the time of unravelling?
With each day passing, dawn comes sooner.
One morning it will break before me,
before I can make my journey
across the floor,
through the night into sleep.
One day dawn will find me still weaving
spells among my circles.
Will I be turned into stone?

iii)
Knowing you near me is no consolation
when the distance to be crossed
between your door
and I on the floor
is as great as between the earth's far poles.