It started at the end
when she walked away
Purple paint on his fingertips
His pockets full of clay

He's an artist
He thinks in strokes
She's a lover
She speaks in giggles and jokes

The sketchbooks form a pile
He's drunken all the wine
His hands are steady without hers holding them
He remembers how to draw in a straight line

If art comes from suffering
he's reached his prime
And since she's left him
He takes his time

The galleries are filled with her portraits
He memorized the contours of her face
Every sketch is an echo of her features
that he can't bring himself to erase
The paint is his tears and so he cries

It started two years in
At first they were just hints
The colors kept getting darker
Black was mixed with every tint

The slow distortion
The quiet craze
In the end she knew
this was no phase

For a while she ignored it
"I know we'll be alright"
People talked, she heard the whispers
In the end, she couldn't fight

It grew apparent
She was his muse
But he was rope soaked in kerosene
She saw the fuse

In the night she packed her bags
And stole a pen to prove her claim
While he worked inside his study
she disappeared into the rain
In the din of the storm she freely cried

Can you believe time gets away like that?
Who are we?
I don't know where I'm at
I'm not alone--
just on my own--
collecting grains of sand

my life is like this, she said


and she tore a sheet of paper


and threw the pieces in the air.

How many million galaxies there are
Who knows? and each has countless stars in it,
And each rolls through eternities afar
Beneath the threshold of the Infinite.

How is it that will all that space to roam
I should have found this mote that spins and leaps
In what unutterable sunlight, foam
Of what unfathomable starry deeps

Who knows!? And how this thousand million souls
And half a thousand million souls of earth
That swarm, all bound for unimagined goals,
All pioneers of death enrolled at birth,

How were they swept away before my sight,
That I might stand upon the single *****
Of infinite space and time as infinite,
Who knows? Yet here I stand, climacteric,

Having found you. Was it by fall of chance?
Then what a stake against what odds I have won!
Was it determined in God's ordinance?
Then wondrous love and pity for His son!

Or was it part of an eternal law?
Then how ineffably beneficent!
Each thought excites an ecstasy of awe,
A rapture rending the mind's firmament.

Infinity -yet you and I have met.
Eternity -yet hand in hand we run.
All odds that I should lose you or forget,
But, soul and spirit and body, we are one.

Is this the child of Chance, or Law, or Will?
Is None or All or One to thank for this?
It will not matter if thanksgiving fill
The endless empyrean with a kiss.

There was a pause.
Not uncomfortable, never uncomfortable, but not unnoticed.
'Why do you tell me? We're stuck here.
It's the end and yet you dwell on what has passed.
Surely there's more that matters.'

She trailed off, unsure of where she was going.

'Ahh, but there is nothing that matters more at the end than what has passed.'

He let that comment sit in the sticky air.
'Take us, for instance.'
He continued.
She kicked rocks up onto her foot and into the sea.

'Would we ever talk like this should we have known each other at home?
This candidly? No.
There are no cameras out here.
Not that we'd be worried about doing something wrong.
This isn't wrong.
But worried about what people would think. What they'd say.
We wouldn't voice these concerns to each other, but they'd be there.
Complete comfort, complete ease.
But it would be tainted by the sins of those who have gone before.
The minds of those who search for judgement.'

He had a habit of going off into unintelligible speech at the end.
Breath seemed to evade him for a moment, then release.

She usually had some quick reply. Funny to only them;
But she just stood there. Without speaking.

When you stop speaking, the sounds around you seem to amplify.
Suddenly the rustle of the leaves nearby,
The twiddle of the birds,
The rush of white water meeting sand,
The distant commotion of the rest of the group setting up a fire.

There are two trees;
One standing tall and pure
And one below, shaking in the river
With paler colour, and crooked edge.
We have ourselves
And the selves we reflect to the world.
The truest terror is leaning forward
And diving in.

Let me tell you about something I saw the other day,
when I was out walking through a field of hay.
The night was quite pretty, the air crisp and clear,
when I suddenly encountered a cat who was drinking a beer!
I walked a little farther and encountered some mice,
sitting around a card table, all playing dice.
The mice looked quite serious, they all dressed like thugs,
I was dumbfounded, and simply stared down from above.
Then I saw something that completely blew my mind,
it was a variety of animals, dancing in a conga line.
For hours and hours and hours they danced,
more animals joined in, even deer came to prance.
This party was larger than any I’d seen,
a couple of badgers were even smoking something green.
“Innocent” deer were snorting lines off of snakes,
and a couple drunk farm dogs were fighting with rakes.
A cat and a mouse were sitting in a barn,
entirely too drunk, they took turn telling yarns.
From across the field, you could hear an owl retch,
while a gaggle of geese slurred “Benny and the Jets.”
Sheep laughed, “Bahaha!” while dancing on tables,
the horses were getting it on in the stables.
This party was crazier than any I’d attended,
a pig even ended up losing an appendage.
As the sun came up, things started winding down,
all the cows went home, and the "Keg King" took off his crown.
I took this as my cue, it was time to depart,
so a couple mice and I hitched a ride on a farmer’s cart.
"Sayonara!" I yelled, "It's been lots of fun!
Everybody get home safe, try not to hurt anyone!"
But enough about me, let's talk about you.
That was my weekend, what did you do?

Once upon a harvest moon,
a timid gnome encountered a boisterous baboon.
“Whacha up to tonight?!” the baboon slurred,
yelling loud enough that the whole town heard.

‘You got this man,’ the shy gnome thought,
because for a baboon, she was kind of hot.
“Not much, ya know,” stated the gnome,
“I’ve just been hanging out at home.”

“Well that ain’t fun!” the baboon cried,
“You’ve gotta have fun, life’s supposed to be a crazy ride!”
Embarrassed, the gnome replied with a fib,
“Tonight was a fluke! I got out, I’m no Squib!”

Laughing she stated, “I think you’re a liar.”
“Oh really?” He retorted, “My pants aren’t on fire.”
She laughed, “HA HA HA! Good one honey,”
the baboon didn’t realize his joke was not funny.

Drunk as a skunk, she had no clue,
the meadow she was in was not Club Blue.
The gnome, however, thought things were going well,
trapped in the clutches of her womanly spell.

Being a bit nerdy he didn’t get out much,
the poor gnome had never even felt a woman’s touch.
Feeling bolder he decided to take a chance,
until he realized that the baboon had peed her pants.

If dying is similar to sleep,
I'll lie in bed and count the sheep
They'll smile at me in passing-by,
And wait for me on the other side.

All will be glad when I finally come
The sheep will dance, and laugh and run.
And all the animals will see
That dying was the fate for me.

My loved ones back home won't understand
"We want you back," They'll cry in demand
But alas, I am much happier here
With the sheep, the birds, the rabbits and deer.

For what I lacked in life I have in death
And I'll never return to breathing a breath
If dying is sleeping, I'll sleep all day
As long as with the sheep I will stay.