Two Colors (Image List Poem)

Heat on Cool

Glow on Shade

Citrus on Sugar

Electricity on Stone

Security on Fear

Illumination on Mystery

Visibility on Blindness

Spice on Sweet

Poetry on Grammar

Yellow on Blue

The Studio

Sitting in a master’s studio

I can feel his energy,

His musings,

His art-making in the air

The atmosphere here feels thicker

Like gelatin

I can imagine if I had the right lenses,

I could see its shifting colors and light rays

Did he ever cry here, in frustration?

Did he laugh and talk to himself,

As I do when I create?

Did he ever wish that he saw more of himself

In his work?

The brown wooden chair at the easel is black

Where his arms rested and where his shoulders rested

The wood floor is dulled by scars and slices:

Evidence that his art work was not painless

Even for his studio

The bookshelves bustle, bright bindings

Colors faded now, yet still busting bright

With conversations between Degas, Renior, Rembrandt,

Van Eyck, Van Gogh, and Winslow Homer

Did he only listen to them?

Or did he ever talk back?

Out here is my rest time

My time to daydream sleepily,

Absorbing the aura in a place of genius

I can only hope to leave at the end of the day

With this buzzing, building, inspiring energy

Still soaking into the skin of my brain

Soul Searching

Drawing out the cool mood of the bricks,
Create a friendly, familiar space
For your soul.
Reach out to touch
Something unseen on these benches,
Being here, in this moment.

Instead, we anticipate moment after moment after moment,
Never giving credit to the wisdom of bricks.
We don’t have time to sit upon benches.
We are used to limited space,
Limited touch,
Logic overrunning soul.

Free the soul!
Treasure each moment,
Each touch.
Learn from bricks.
Engage in this pregnant space.
Rest, weary, on these wooden benches.

We are more familiar with bus stop benches
And “science, not soul,”
The “race to space,”
the lost moment,
Crumbling bricks,
And the half-hearted touch.

Rethink the way we touch!
Strip and repaint benches;
Build with handmade bricks.
Electrify the soul,
And seek personal truths every moment.
Expand what is known as a “safe space.”

This is unlike any other space.
Invite a touch,
And revel in a wholesome moment.
Sit on these benches,
Close your eyes, and find your soul.
Feel the love in these bricks.

Encircling bricks, enlightening space
Enlivened soul, energized touch
Encasing benches, endlessly enriched moment

Rain On the Grounds

 

This is the type of rain shower I walk out into only when

I want to be anywhere

Except where I was

Only then is feeling cold and wet

Liberating,

Because I decide what happens to my body

You don’t get to make me feel cold and damp,

Dreary and foggy,

Stormy and teary,

When I push myself into the rain

On a sunny day when I am burning, yearning

For sun,

In need of vitamin D and positive thoughts

No longer coming from me,

This shower would ruin me

On a day like today

In this tiny room away from all

I am peaceful in spite of pain

And the rain cocoons me in this little shelter

In a cleansing, pattering rhythm

Pebble

Cheese

Or the moon

Or pitted somethings

You aren’t so interesting

And yet I’m supposed to find you

Beautiful?

If I could shrink in size,

I could scale you

I’m sure that

From a much closer view

You have hills and valleys

And pits to fall into

Or jump over

If I were smaller than a dust mite,

I could traverse your rough terrain

For days

And still have more to explore

I could nap on your surface

As it warms in the sun

Like a microscopic lizard

Maybe you have broken off

A beautiful building

And haven’t felt complete since?

I feel like that sometimes

Maybe you should go diving with me

Into the sea

And find a new wondrous home

At the bottom

Sink to depths

Your body would survive

Unlike mine

Imagining it,

There could be cause to be proud

Of what you have done

Where you have been,

And what you could be,

Little pebble

My Studio

Someday I’ll have a space

Where I’m all throughout the air

Where my musings settle into the floorboards, throw rugs, and sheer curtains

Leaving behind a spicy-sweet smell

Someday I’ll have a space

Full of light, white and strong

But soft enough to bring with it

Subtle, creeping realizations and inspirations

To influence my hand on the page

Someday I’ll have a space

Wooden, open and warm

Big enough to hold canvases, easels, chairs, and tools

With the required dancing room between them

Someday I’ll have a space

That I will call only mine

In which I will create, innovate, and communicate

In what I will call “my style”

A space in which I will discover who I am

And how I will change the world