A vintner of aged leaves in the wine-press of the sun,
Thin-skinned like the lucent grapes from the vine-runs
Of the island trellises and teal-cordoned waves, lowest slung
Fruit-laden bough of sky, Sicily, whose ateliers of rolled cigarettes
And uprolled sleeves like tides tease smoke into studio paints,
The black apple wine of storm made into mouthfuls of pulp rain,
Before the sunrise is gathered again in fishing nets and crab pots,
The coastal towns with their salted roofs of pied clay and pigeons
Along the lava stone streets, and night from the chanteuse of Egypt,
Singing her coral to heron, as when her bird-like barefooted slaves
Left tracks across Old Kingdom wastes, so this dreaming old man
Leaves his wrinkles to these grapes and across the sand-island pillow,
Asleep with his fathers, hay-hauling peasants of wandering darkness.

O Vincent
Great poesie through dotted skies
And o'er flooded eyes
Of softest loneliness

Take my desert tongue
And immerse it, from chamber to tip
Let it burst onto crazy lip
The loose chimes of loving

And if all patterns take me
To the whims of quiet sleights
I will not flail against that night
For any place is rightly dipped in beauty

Should I find myself forlorn
In the heights o'er skipping valleys
Or the depths of sodden alleys
I will accept it in your breath

Luminescent skin, spiralling layers pressed
From inside the curling dagger pollen;
Violin strings draw forth the butterflies
Towards their fate, cerberus lips clasp
Wings of dafodil— spotty mossy green
Outcrosses the budded red drooping dead;
Akashic run, like that of a waterfall
Whence rippling pendulums row,caught infinitely.

Glowing stem— seperating to laughing claws
and mandalas paused along fully harmonious crease;
All falls back to fungal soil underground
For which all life is magnetically supported:
Prestine exoskeleton, flaming bones
that weavith skyward with ancestral ghost
softly chasing, having foundated their creator.

Blonde hair binding split petals via waves
  Of furious vibrations, snapped calm and quiet.

Mature flesh and bone, whom let the pencil
Move over pale canvas—
'I picture a clock that's arms spin fire
Outward. '
Poor woman, legless two years
Prior to her deathday— wonderous harbinger
Who once, overwhelmed by the menial day to day,
let pencil fall,skim and form
   and reform

Beautifying the world -- lonely, bold and brave
Her mind image caught, fished through the haze

And etched for the rest of time to forget.

he painted flourishing gardens
and stunning landscapes
using a palette of superb
colour drapes

in his homeland they toast
him with champagne
for his canvases hang
in their art gallery's lane

his works are worth
many millions of dollars
and they've been studied
by generations of scholars

of the impressionist style
was he
he had brush daubing
down to a tee

paint me a picture
if you possibly can
that will tell me
of this creative man

codex painter
have your hands rusted
is this world not  as vivid
as the one centuries ago
the one
that bore the same tint,
rich in intent to serve,
to devotedly work
head inclined
over the flaming light
and under the celestial stars

pictograms
are what I now reach for
from the vessels tucked behind my ears
from the smell of copper
and the tastes of adobe pots,
simmering with memories,
to the corneas anchoring my vision

because I must have a vision
the "it" becomes what we intend
and I intend "it"

give me your codices
unfold the fibers of the agave plant
and let me paint again
this world
larger
this lifetime kinder
for I have always been a scribe and
a painter
and my heart rejoices in service
to an existence expanding
to meet itself in the eyes of all
who I dare draw