she paints on his skin -
glitter collarbones
a midnight blue luster

drags the brush across his chest
pensively,
in admiration of how the color
reflects and glisters,
soft skin coated in a glowing sheen

her supple fingers brush the shimmering dust
along his neck and down his shoulder blades
till he's enveloped in a blue gloom
aside from a gap that rests over his heart

the artist dips her brush in a mixture of silver and golds
and spreads it onto the skin above his heart
to complete the piece
she drags the golden glitter out in streaky motions,
a brilliant sun enclosed in his platinum ribcage

I collect every
one
that resides within,
memories
that need unchaining.

Never letting rivers
flow
away your happiness
ebbing
emotions saturating inside.

I'll inhale every
sorrow
that needs release.
Hues
of sentiment painting within.


Never letting you
drown
from tears descending down.
Vessel
of your dejection, I'll never fill up.

Paint me a knew
Give me a fresh coat
Let the liquid
That most people Call poisonous
Drip down my body And down my throat
I don't want to be me
So paint me a knew
And if this poison
Kills me
Strip half my body of this paint
Let everyone at my funeral see
The before and after
Let them know
That if someone looks better
than ever before
You still need to see
The signs

Look at my eyes
See where the pale tan
And the White of my eyes
Meet
Is it blurred
Can you see where the paint mixes
Look at the outlines
Of my body
See that the hand that painted them
Was the shakiest
See how my anatomy
Is not correct
Like mannerism’s art
See the clouds of the storm
Rage in the background
Of my portrait

See the creases on my wrist
It is not a flaw of the artist
It is not the painting itself
But someone who came into my exhibit
Into the room where I
Am the main center piece
At my own funeral
And slashed my canvas
The doctors scrambled to fix me
But not because it was me
But because of the beauty of new coat of paint
And how much money
I cost them

I am a time period of art
Thrown to waste
By the paint
That makes me beautiful

Don't fall in love with a writer.
A writer will take you to worlds unknown and you will get lost.
Don't fall in love with a poet.
A poet will construct stanzas of love and heartbreak,
Leaving you desperate for words unfathomable.
Don't fall in love with an artist.
An artist will paint you into their realm of never ending paintbrush strokes where love is just another color on a canvas,
Just like sadness.
Don't fall in love with her,
She is a mindless soul wandering the halls of heartache.
Don't look at her,
Her eyes will pull you deeper into the gold flakes that encircle her pupils like stars surrounding a black hole.
Don't fall in love with her touch,
Fragile fingers tracing patterns over your skin like a delicate knife cutting you open to create flesh wounds never to heal.
Don't fall in love with her body,
Captivating you with her honey drizzled hips,
Nectar inducing lips,
Taunting you as she strips.
Your skin is like fire,
Burning flames dancing and mingling with just a fleeting touch of her beauty.
Don't fall in love with her,
But,
You already have.

Now I miss my painting.
Hologram lizards
Delectful trees
Green tomatoes.

Rembrandt, you maniac!
While other guys were down at the local tavern,
drinking and playing cards,
-- or off visiting Paris --,
you were in the studio.
Long after your students had left,
there you were, slaving away.

Did your family get sick of posing?

Others painted us as we seem
-- a bit better-looking, I suppose. . . .
You painted us as we are:
proud, sorrowful, hopeful, uncertain.

Where we'd seen only ugliness you found beauty.

The Bible? You made it human:
We felt Christ's pain! Magdalene's astonishment.

You were foolish with your money,
failed to pay your debts.
We forgive you.

You were stubborn, mean, obsessed.
You loved us
only when you were painting us.
We forgive you.

You worked on your own paintings
instead of ones which might have sold at higher prices,
ones which might have paid your debts.
We forgive you.
Because your art is so incomparably beautiful
we forgive you.

[A child of indeterminate sex--either a delicate-featured boy or a tomboy-ish girl--, 9 or 10 years old, enters the chamber where the United States Council of Artists is meeting.]

"Is this the United States Council of Artists?"

[The Chairman of the Council responds:] "Yes. Who are you?"

"That doesn't matter. Are all the high arts present? Poetry, Music, the Visual Arts?"

"Yes. . . . There are people from all the various arts here. . . ."

"The Hour of your Doom is upon you."

"What do you mean?"

"You've failed to create with feeling.
Nuclear angst no longer excuses you.
Moral uncertainty, the dissolution of society,
no longer excuses you.
The 'Death of God' no longer excuses you.
Human beings have not changed.
We are not the hollow men.
Great art
comes from the heart;
your superfluities will now depart.

"Painter! Isn't it true that the same day you started work on this [holding up a reproduction of the painting "Incongruities: White Lines, Pink Lines"] you visited a hardware store with a middle-aged clerk whose face was wonderfully sad and quizzical? That as you walked home the pattern of the sun shining through the trees onto the sidewalk was marvelously variegated?


"Composer! Tell me honestly [playing a cassette recording of "Duet in F-Minor for Flute and Woodblock"] that these rhythmless sounds move you. . . . It's made with the head, completely with the head.

"Poet! Isn't it true that you've never written any poems expressing your deepest feelings: your love of your older sister; the painful growing-apart of you and your wife leading up to your divorce; your hatred of the stuffy academics who denied you tenure; the passion you felt for that Australian girl on Corfu last summer. . . . Instead you've written these [holding up a book entitled Root Crops, No Metaphors and reading from it:]

     translucent, magenta-veined root-tips
     push, cell by cell, into humid grit;
     dark green, dark-red-veined crowns
     expand profligately sunward. . . .

"Great art
speaks to the heart;
your superfluities will now depart."

[Another Council member:] "Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to this --surprisingly eloquent-- young person, I suggest that we return to the business at hand which is" [consulting his agenda] "the allocation this fiscal year for haiku in South Dakota."

From white canvass, a blank ledger of potent expectation, awaiting form and function: the seminal swirl of her brush signals simple hue, subtle structure. From flesh stroke, sanguine blush of satin seams and outstretched limbs, the artist invokes shade and light. Spring greens, rampant peaks, reaching aloft into gossamer mists; calm swells, verdant bosoms, inviting fields of luxuriant temptation. From an eternal cool, the (all too) temporary warmth of her embrace lies just beyond: enticing, luring, coaxing into heady desire. From whence, the dream unfolds...