-
I wake
    A thirst
        A terrible thirst
            Rouses me from dreamless sleep
                So down to the kitchen
                    To douse and slake
                         With book in hand...
-
Aurthur
    A hero?
        This King of golden,
            Olden tales
                More like David
                    Than I previously knew!
-
A boatload of infants
    Four weeks old and unattended
        Born around May Day
            And a good man's wife
                Plays wet nurse
                    to King Aurthur's undoing
-
Elsewhere on my bookshelf,
    Apollo strips
        Marsyas of his outer finery
            After winning the battle
                ...Of the bands
-
Flayings a-plenty on canvases  
    In my image search results
      ...With "happy little trees"
            And the Faun
                 Skinned to his knees
-

Soothing voice of Bob Ross plays
    on loop in my head

Some of the only peace that has come
    Of late

-
Happy-little-flayings
    Happy-little-monstrosities
-

The sky is darkened, the sun is hiding
    his face in skies over 'round the
        eastern edge...and the moon is
            refusing to shine her light.

-

I open my throat and try to
    say...anything
        
           To YOU
.
.
.
And back toward my bedroom I climb

Every day we'd sit
to the soothing voice
of the afro man,
dabbing his brush
into happy little bushes.
Now those happy little accidents
are gone far away from you,
so far, his 'fro
seems nothing more than
a bush on the side of the road.

Describing his wispy voice,
the gentle stroke of his brush
brings a vague smile,
but only just,
a mimic of the joy that comes
to my lips as I
reminisce,
selfishly
before you.

A child then,
I barely knew my colors;
yet you helped me
bloom a rainbow garden.
And when I knew my colors well,
you embraced the forests
I drew in blue,
the models of spacecraft
from distant worlds,
imagined by foreign minds.
I wept only once
in front of you,
a rare tantrum for a childish thing.
You cleared my tears
and left me beaming in my new
ballcap.

Older now,
I describe the colors to you;
you recall the meaning of two
or three.
Life has turned you
back into a child:
screaming outwardly,
weeping inwardly.
The things you know you should know
escape you,
things now beyond
your comprehension.
Decades upon decades
you experienced the magic
your fingers could bring to the
canvas of our lives.
The watercolors now bleed into
vague puddles of tan,
oils run thick and drip,
matting the carpet.
You tantrum against the loss
of yourself
as I dab your tears
and offer you the hat
of my memories
to sustain you through the fog
laid heavy around your head.

So I tell you the story
of the afro man,
dabbing his brush
into happy little bushes,
and we navigate this
not-so-happy little accident
that is you
lost on the last leg of your
life journey,
hoping my smile
will stay contagious to you
until that last step
that breaks the haze
and brings you home.

I paint the picture with pastel colors.
Dotting the sky in pink clouds
While the horizon lay in an amber slumber.
A single pine tree slanted towards the crystal lake;
I draw another for companionship.
And it soon blooms into a forest
With shrubs and blackberry bushes and ferns,
Then I make a ripple in the lake
With leaves that drift along the gentle current
To the farther edges of the tender loch.

I envisioned the clear waters of the wetlands
As I cleaned my pallet and washed away the paint,
Like how painting landscapes washed away my worries.