If the beautiful pea green boat had been painted battleship grey,the owl and the pussycat would have stayed at home and not 'sailed away for a year and a day',but it wasn't and they did.
The story ends quite badly some would say quite sadly,the pussycat got rid of the owl,stating in his defence, that fowl was for the eating of and not for spouting like a whale in Edward Lear's fairy tale.
If only the boat had been painted battleship grey the owl might still be with us today.

How is it that one man can work
on one brushstroke (and a few spots)
for almost two years?
I thought about
the oriental calligraphers
who spent a lifetime perfecting
that one brushstroke.
Suddenly,
the silence and loneliness
of the painter’s profession
pierce through my heart.

Leaf shows a simple fold
of translucent green paint
that appears as a gesture
of concealment, of implication,
as if the smallest mystery of nature,
the greenness of a leaf,
was being held and protected
within a fold of pigment.

Small reservoirs of oil and Liquin leak
from the top edge of the mark,
and where the green stroke has carried over
to the frame, the paint shows
as a dark varnish, barely perceptible.

With consummate economy,
Leaf draws together nature and art
and shows how natural things live
within and despite history.

Leaf is about the ‘time of plants’
but also about the long durée
which the single brushstroke spills.
The painted wooden frame was added later.

I'll paint my ceiling lilac
Make it twinkle with flashlight stars
I'll build a cardboard spaceship
We can fly to our orange peel mars
You'll call me your astronaut
As I pull you up to the swirling sky
Explore every marshmallow whirl
As I fall for your acorn eyes
Our bodies will be constellations
Limbs and breaths intertwined
Our souls are dot-to-dots connected
Heartbeats rhymth aligned
I painted this dream for us
Used a palette made for you and I
Every brushstroke will be worth it
You're my favourite lullaby

late last night i walked alone along the desolate shore
of Monet’s pond at Giverny the pale moon
sometimes obscured by impasto clouds
the waterlilies those treacherous waterlilies
screaming in agony
Saskia, Rembrandt’s wife, was there
naked and weeping, her hair and body
wet and slimy draped in orange pond algae
Cezanne crouched nearby cursing and slashing canvases
with a butcher’s knife before tossing them into a fire
when he finished he made fierce love to Saskia
who sang an old Dutch love song as he did
Rembrandt was in deep conversation with Monet
in a puddle of passing moonlight
and didn’t seemed to mind, anything
to stop her endless wailing I heard him say
Monet says Titian’s mistress is now a mermaid
who lives beneath my betraying waterlilies which is why they cry
and why I keep painting them no one makes love like her
just look at Titian’s Madonnas
Van Gogh stumbles in from a dung-filled alley, bleeding badly
from the bullet wound in his abdomen,
where the rich kids from Auvers tormented and shot him
just for the fun of it, Vermeer bankrupt and gaunt
steps from behind a tree and asks if it’s suicide or the new art
Vincent says let the people believe that tragic ending
it’s a dramatic final brushstroke to my life even if untrue
but I love the blackbirds and my wheat fields and blue irises
way too much to spill my guts on them cadmium red maybe
my left ear lobe maybe but never my guts
where’s de Kooning anyhow he yells the *******
borrowed my paintbrush and never returned it
now I’ll have to paint with the tongue of Gauguin’s old shoe
Caravaggio floats by face up caressed by the wet palms of the weeping lilies
he’s burning up with fever delirious screaming
where’s my ship where’s my ship
they’re all on the ship my paintings
my paintings will redeem me the Pope knows
I only killed one man
Monet strokes his beard like Moses Rembrandt
says it happens to all of us even our wives and
mistresses perhaps it’s the lead in our *****
it’s not suicide it’s not homicide it’s the madness of living too much
Rothko appears, a translucent ghost inside a mist salving his slashed wrist
with Monet’s pond water Mark washing washing
the healing water the Giverny water dancing with pran the giver of life
that’s what Monet was painting at the end
using the palette from the other side
pran transmitted through the wailing
of the waterlilies the siren’s song
that lures artists to their death
and then washes them clean for the next go
to pick up where they left off, alone
with his whiskey bottle Jackson ******* hurls paint clots
at Rembrandt’s Still Life with Peacocks
those two dead peacocks they’re all dead peacocks
floating belly up under Monet’s footbridge
all the color gone from their plumage
drink the water Jackson or better yet
let Cezanne rip out your diseased liver
and wrap it carefully in a weeping waterlily
and float it out into the middle of the pond
where the forgiving moonlight and the mermaids
and Monet’s eyes now dim with cataracts
can help it filter out the poison of living
too much and then you too Jackson
will make painterly love to Saskia and she will
daub your diseased body in Titian’s blue
and her husband’s gold and Vincent’s sunflower yellows
and send you back into the world
where you will continue to splash us all  
as we lie flat on the ground hands and legs intertwined
our faces and bodies your canvas more willing than ever
Jackson, you’ll turn us into a unified field of smashed hues not just from here but from where you stand one foot on the other side
get us all raging drunk Jackson in that myth you longed for
splatter us in the tinted mess of the mystery you raged at
and had to settle for drunken oblivion instead
drink deeply the mystic-hued water of Giverny
Vincent and Paul and Mark and Jackson
and when you come back
spit it out on our parched souls

The poet’s quill scribes a vision of the debutante
as she rests amongst the bluebells
Scattered like jewels over the meadow.

The delicate voice of the robins
Echo through the valley,
Where the gentleman tells of his ardor
As they shelter amongst the weeping willows.

Curls tumble from the confines of her hat,
Parasol tilting to hide girlish blushes,
Careless of her silk skirts
they are crushed, lying as broken rose petals.

She glows with the joy of an un-chaperoned picnic
Scent of cinnamon scrolls tempt her senses,
as her beau offers cider to moisten their suddenly dry throats.

Dapper in his impeccable finery,
Coat tails trailing, crisply starched shirt points lifting his chin,
Top hat tilted at a rakish angle.
Dark eye’s glinting with the thrill of his endeavors.

Sunshine silhouettes the glory of the lovers,
whom the poet has sewn together
as an artist creates a masterpiece.

Each syllable as a brushstroke on canvas.
A Monet made not of oil and brushes,
But ink and parchment.
Every word scribed by the care of the poet,
Transformed within the mind of the reader

Day after day, we go through the motions
Like waves searching for shore in the middle of the ocean,
Following along as we get swept by the current
Again and again, waiting for the day it’ll end.

I was lost in this sea of people when I saw him.
A mere glimpse from my periphery, I almost missed
His tear-streaked face and his bleeding knee,
And I thought to myself, how did I not see?

My eyes caught the way his shoulders sagged
From carrying the weight of the world on his back.
He’s only a child but his fate seemed worse than Atlas,
His young body shackled by greedy insatiable hands.

I wonder if someone witnessed his despair,
Picked up a brush and decided to share
The story of a boy whose future was stolen
By heroes who were nothing but villains.

His pleas echo in every brushstroke
And while my hands can never replicate
The vivid imagery offered by paint
He can live on in the words I create.

Even though your funeral was in the summer,
It felt like autumn the way the tears
Hung off Aunt Shelley's jawbone like cold raindrops
On the eaves of the old porch,
The way Grandpa's eyes were too red and wet and
A thousand years away,
The way Dad's sorrow poured out of folded arms and tight lips,
Soft like worn leather,
The way it rained too lightly to add any cliché dreariness.
I just couldn't think of that red granite box as you, even though I
Knew
It was the soft gray remains of your body.
Death is not like winter, cold and harsh
Death is autumn, life draining from bodies,
Life drip-dripping from stuttering lips and
Once-strong grips
Death is watching summers of laughter and hugs fade to
Hospital rooms and rain-grey skin and
Slow sad songs like wind in red-brown, dead-brown leaves
And feeling a slow, quiet loneliness invade your veins.
Your death was not cold, impersonal sterile white; it was the
Aching melancholy melody of removing
One shade of green
From a palette, not noticed in the painting at large
But felt  keenly in the way the artist's hand no longer
Cues that brushstroke.
Watching you die was watching all the green leach out of the leaves
And turn them briefly, painfully on fire,
Standing in a field of emerald grass and feeling it
Crinkle and turn yellow-orchre under cold fingers
Collapsing into mud.
Watching Death from the outside is the single
Most painful part of your painless process.
When you took your last breath, your features were a
Picture-perfect memory of peace, even as my face was a
Mask of confusion, my chest heaving with stale hospital air
The way yours would never again.
I wanted to run outside and imagine all the trees turning red-gold
In your honor, mimicking your final
Blaze of glory in that last smile.
Autumn came early that year, though no trees
Turned
Til October.
Even in the middle of spring I can smell the
Rain-woods-wind-wine scent of your autumn soul
And it makes me smile.

THE LANGUAGE OF WATER

You wait by the lake
alone

except for your self
&
your reflected self

as if the landscape
dreamt you up.

Your thoughts a flock of birds
scattered across the failing light.

Clouds laugh
run along the ground
on tiny unseen feet.

Trees stand on their heads
wriggling their toes in the air

& you
become as two

both real & unreal

as if a living
dream.

You hum
Pachabel's Canon

as sun & horizon
listen.

Not bad for a human
they both agree.

It's as if
I need a key

to enter this magical
dimension

as if I have to
invent one

...a magical one.
I take a little stone

whisper to it the secrets
of flight

and teach it how to say: "Splash! "
in the language of water.

The little stone
transformed  with its new knowledge

does as it is told

shatters
this mirror world

opens
the dream

and I enter
bewitched

as any fairytale
Prince

my voice
calling your sweet name

with longing

you turn
& we embrace

kiss
& look upon ourselves

as the dream
remakes itself

stitching itself
together with silence.

An old artist
(unknown to us then)  

places us
the lovers

at the center
of his composition

adds this
final brushstroke

and pleased
with his efforts

folds up
his chair

packs up
his paints & easel

smiles at our
kisses

wishes
us a goodnight

and is gone
eaten by the twilight.

Our laughter
frail & fragile

lingering on the night air

playing peek-a-boo
with the moonlight.

Well, we were the History club rejects,
focusing on the effects
of being us
instead of in a book.

Two college drop-outs,
calling in shout-outs
to our friends,
hoping that it affected
how we looked.

Our dads would sleep in,
and our moms were crying
until a quarter past noon --
and we knew
if we didn't start trying,
that would be us, soon.

We were the starving artists,
painting fruit we couldn't afford.
Hoping each brushstroke of an artichoke
would be fruitful to our wallet,
or at least strike a chord.

Two love-loss orphans,
dreaming of morphing
into something or someone else.
But they told us
to remove that fluff
from our head
and put it on the shelves.

We were the film club fanatics,
studying the dynamics
of how to be a pretend person.
We wanted to be
a Wes Anderson flick,
but we were never any thing
other than who we were
and that's what made us sick.

And I swear I miss the desperation:
I'm nostalgic for yesterday's conversations.

The cherry tree outside
thatches its delicate fingers
into a mesh of pink petal sea,
fathomless to the eye.

The window frames it,
a perfect picture untarnished by
brushstroke, pencil or pastel.
Each line crisp, each colour full

The wind tosses the branches
into waves that break pink spray
into the breeze. The blossom snows
down like a springtime blizzard.

Soon the branches will be bare,
like bones stripped of flesh.

Navy blue tip of the brushstroke cleansed my eyelids of a black miscelleny
Of eyeliner, mascara and heavy black pain hidden behind.
Whatever in the world it takes to be a woman
Standing upon a pair of daggers dipping in your feet, your pretty feet
And producing a rose red, sun bright smile to all who wish for your downfall.
I realised it was night, long hours of pretence for sleep.
****** burden Recalling my woes, buried in my head, in my throat, to life. Now sore and deep!
There is more than sufficient oxygen in the air, yet I can't breathe.
I'm tracking every star that might fortell a happy fate.
Whereas it fades and leaves me to my own certain doom.
Whatever in the world it takes to be a woman.
To wipe away your own tears at night.
And fall back to sleep.

the coast, it is just as you promised.

         elusive--

the white stones shifting beneath my feet,
this wind. this rain,
the way the steely sky
trickles down to kiss the sea,
the indistinct rumors / hints / echoes of mountains
where the mist has slept with the trees.

                       vast, inconsolable:

the cliffs whisper to me
of their endless
journey to the horizon,
and captured in this fragrant
brushstroke of balsam and pine
I feel the damp northwest morning
soak into my skin,
and suddenly there is
an itching of feathers
and salt in my veins.

                                      {evergreen, wild}

                     for a second,
I bite into the marine chaos
of these dancing whitecaps,
and it is just as you promised.

untamable.


      pacific.

A bantam sounds afternoon tidings as the iron weathervane points Northeast ..
Both silhouettes as endearing a sight as my eyes could
ever witness ...
Astral nights , my amour ..Colorful light illustrations brushstroke the East ,
The edge of the Milky Way perplexes , I bask in it's subtle persuasion ..
Wind battled score and five year Pines sound timorous refrains , offering great euphonic consolation* ..

Marble.
Smooth granite, melting, molding.
Lust making my legs heavy like I am fighting quicksand.

This is my call.

Seduction is an art, just like my body.

With curled toes and an arched back I fight my woes.
I can scrub their hand prints off with hot water,
douse my body in bleach and wake up clean.

My soul is one of the few things harder than my heart.
My soul is a brick through your windowpane
in the dead of a black night.

They call me names they do not know the meaning of.
I do not mind this,
they do not know how lonely I get without fingers exploring me, painting me like I am a canvas in need of
the perfect finishing brushstroke.

I am a woman, not an exceptionally beautiful one,
but I can still make your head turn when I walk by.
Not exceptionally personable,
but i know the power of a compliment,
and I will shower you in them until you think you have won me over.

You have not.

I do not belong to anyone,
I do not even own myself.
Remember you will never truly know me,
so go on and forget about having me.

Left behind us, that questioned absent mise-en-scène
With gods compassionate speaking over me;
Carelessly deliberate staves of notes rise off the pastiche
To push the soul above the throat through to the hubris of Man
And while his brushstroke unpaints the painter, and a lucid camera shutters free.

All things arise from unities as fibers from the music sheet,
A horn of violet magnitude triumphs beyond the bore concrete,
It cuts below the rest, the merit, teasing to the very womb
Of beauty, raw and eager as primitive desire; he shows to us a tomb
A snapshot of myself the author, of us authors, born again and again

And he sits smug to the side, his cigar as long as libido.
Our bodies are substance on which and of which are drawn
From the comely purple man, patient and ******, he bears
For the very law of beast commands a stable mind,
Captains the aesthete unto the intrusive hole from, for which he writes

For which we create: in that, we find the hungry impetus,
Mothers and fathers in the same moment, with abandon
A moral of such empty stuff pulls from me spirit, spirit, spirit
Of the living wager, my life, as the music man, as the purple man
Ensconced by *****, comes to me: thus is proposed, thus is empowered

Poesis brought me close to the thing of God, poetry brought me from
And beyond, and I dedicate myself to escape from the ******* of art
But run back, and back, and back to the sole recourse to be made.
I can only ride, and writhe to feel the ****** of creation
Let it take hold, let it take breath, rise immortal o’er this infinite little death.

As I stared at the corroded ladder of rust and regret that is the life I call my own, you find your way into my mind once again despite the walls of stone I've piled up to keep you out so that I may sleep in peace and dream of currents that take me out to a sea of wonder and beauty, where indigo waves dance to a choir of dazzling stars orchestrated by the moon, I find myself remembering the way your lips would curve up ever so slightly at the edges as you saw me walk up your driveway with love in my eyes and I remember the pain I withstood as your own met mine with annoyance like looking down a loaded barrel which I soon after found myself considering, but despite the pain in my chest that struck with each intake of breath I held strong to the belief that there was something worth waiting for just around the corner of this street so littered with mistakes, bloodied doorways, broken mailboxes and boarded up remains of what were once church windows, the path upon which I tread was as broken as I, awash with the brown and green of shattered beer bottles, and with each step I took to a chorus of crepitations I came to realise a little bit more that this was wrong, this was not the path for me, or at least not the one upon which I could wear a smile with the hope of looking out at the world with love in my eyes again, you see I was not resigned to the occupation of an angry old drunk spouting abuse at any who wandered too close, I was not content to such a lifestyle, no I was not content to such failure, so I found the corner and now I climb a different ladder, one lacking poorly made decisions bred out of a sorrow so deep it was evident in every stolen glance, I'm climbing with hope in my battered heart, and though I fear to fall, I know now that I will land in safety netting strung by the desire to stay alive and see a pair of lips curve up ever so slightly at the edges once more as I walk down a driveway with love in my eyes, I have faith that I can climb this ladder to its peak and cry out in amazement as the sun lights the sky and the earth awakens around me, as though some unseen artist takes up his palette of petals, the likes of which set autumn ablaze, and with each brushstroke a new story begins as seeds take root and fears dissipate in the mind I now have no horror of traversing, thoughts form and drift lazily through my mind like a crows feather on a still lake, I stand tall among the clouds made up of arms ready to embrace me should I fall, I find tears in my eyes once more, and yet unlike those salty droplets of sea foam sadness that fell to crimson wrists, these sparkle in the rays of stellar dust that warm my cheeks, for they are shed with joy, unknown to me until such a time as now, when the blood in my veins no longer needs to stain my skin red and my flesh once withered, is now pure, unimpeded by urges spawned from despair of forever living in darkness, I survived the darkness, and I have found the light, I take one last look at the corroded ladder of rust and regret that was my life... And I finally take the first and last step towards truly living, I have no more need of ladders.

In her dreams, the docent
maneuvers schoolchildren

down museum corridors,
shepherding their bodies

into evacuated galleries
where nothing changes

except the patterns
of nails hammered
into plaster walls.

She speaks pedantic
falsehoods until one

by one the children
disengage and find

themselves a constellation
of nails upon which to hang.

A renaissance takes time, but
not as much as you might think.

Come midnight,
the museum is full
of masterpieces.

And though the works
of art make her weep,

the docent is inspired
to study each small frame
for a brushstroke

that might signify
the break of dawn.

we paint a perfect picture,
a beautiful portrait of us
surrounded by flowers,
when our love's put on paper,
in a pretty little frame
hung on the wall,
like a kid's art
on the fridge door.

we're paint with our hands,
it gets messy and everywhere.
we yell and we scream,
hearts shatter and color splatters
across the room.
everything is covered in acrylics,
watercolors, oil paints.
some stains will wash out, others won't.

we paint delicate little details
afterwards,
as though a wrong brushstroke
could ruin the beauty,
ignoring the fact
that we may already have.
it's stiff and it feels wrong,
but that's the price of 'perfect'.

we paint with passion,
practically kissing the paper,
leaving the imprint of our lips,
our love, right there.
signing our names
in the bottom right corner,
as though we were really artists
making real art.

White as a sordid awakening
Hollow, shallow, swallows
Me like an aged cavern

When mother comes in
She is scared to find me
Pale and blue

The window is a hole
Curtains like bedraggled women
Clutch at themselves

She stumbles through a gathering
Of talkative charcoal
And pastel on the floor

Scattered and sallow
Turpentine twists in sweet sashes
Round and round her neck

She calls, wavering already
Diving obliquely through the sea
She reaches for me on the mattress

In the bookshelf,
Behind easels,  pallete
Beneath the bridge of the table

A thousand gales of hues blow
Ruffling a thousand shadows
Thousand murmurs decieve her

Into breathing relief.
I see her heart a flickering flame:
Waves of my deathlessness

Shove her around.
Mother, mother, come closer
I call from the lean wooden

Parapet of the canvas
I dance her about in the sky
Stroke the hair, as

She cries, holding my solidity
Thin, bony; her hands shake
Like factory floors

Rancid blooms of a stubborn faith
Scotch her oak-brown skin
And all the walls watch our show

Disintegration occurs
As she searches for me
Kicking clatter and dust around

I a pebble in the pebbles of me
She picks, examines, throws
Picks examines, throws

All while tumbling
Into into into the stench
Of my keen blue decay

Brushstroke, word, scream and plea
She takes all the noise along
Into the beautiful world

Gaunt, I crawl clawing out
I am monster now
And she is painted.

On a soft July evening he paints a garden path,
lined with all the flowers she admires. He dabs tarnished lanterns on canvas, so she'd walk safely in gentle light. The brushstroke blows her goodbye kisses as she passes by and finally he sets amber accents into the twinkling of her eyes.

If not in this place, but the next realm,
I shalt mine love clepe thee with guardian's to surround; thou shalt findeth me, in a Robe of ivory white, anew with the saint's,
Yahweh's chosen, i'll be in flight. Holding mine hand out, for thy own to reach, when passing the gates I've passed; thou shalt seeith the gold laden street's. I wilt signal the other's, that the portal was not breached. As thou wilt experience a million senses for thy eyne, speech, hearing, touch, thing's God to thee shalt teach. Multi-colored racemes shalt brushstroke the heavenly peak's, O' how the energy we wilt feeleth wilt be as the health of newborn's. None more thunderous storm's or anguish back upon the lower ground; now serenity none enmity against the once demons who came around. Shofar and lyres to grace Jehovah's peaceful sound's; as the echoes art vibes that cometh betwixt ourn soul's. As verily, verily, heaven's ourn abode, heaven's ourn abode by which we shan't fear. Cometh closer mine dear; the time is close, how I now heareth the heavenly Host's, ready to welcome us in. Cometh up hither Christ shalt soon say, judgement day is creeping the corner. We giveth Yahweh praise.


©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley dedicated ( àgapi mou)
©Prophetic poetry

I promise you,
this chest cracks
from the force of my gasp
scrabbling every ounce of
frigid mist I can
warming it with time,
face turned black from pressure.

wait for the release, darling.

it may not thaw
the distance between poles
but I can whistle something sweet
just like you taught me
when the summer was a running river
and our hearts
were not these
frostbitten bird wings
strung out across the dunes

I burnt my harmonica
in the coals you left me
it could not play the blues

we are grey
with nothing between the static
a monochromatic flicker
on long-dead television sets
shattered-glass hope breath
sputtered out in the slip-shape of smoke

my wrists are broken
from digging you out of yourself
so

let’s take a minute to mourn.

let’s see if I can hold the soft silence
on my sharpened shoulders
and keep it from breaking

bring out your paints.
show me how the only thing I couldn't see
was your brushstroke
your choke-face
your pathways
your patched-up heart strings
those holy rolling white things,

I would give my backbone
for another look at your insides.

Fraying portraits of empty souls
Give menacing insight through cold staring eyes
Smoothing skin tones are left
When painters discover
The life in you
Compare the fraught days of flightless birds
making their paradise equal
With men who stalk their ways
In earnest and determined manner
Silently they ensure the vision portrayed
Has no more mileage. But fresh eyes
Must be used to stop contamination
From one to another
Paint and ignore why plenty seem stiff
Even parched from lack of considered input
Each brushstroke emptying their blood
Of many elements, even quelling their breaths
Simply see and lay on..
Don't make it up or smooth that cheek
Give colour and step
The right to be there and develop it
Under the warmth of your love
For this creature
Demonstrate how features can be strong but hold
The famous creations that grab the essence of joy
The grains of lust and manic musings
Lament those days of bored faces
Rejoice as carnage can be raised from modern living
The edges and the softness of found and lost
Will always win through when artist is determined
To give life in paint.

They hang limply from the walls as
Old friend DECAY settles
Suburbia Mexicana neons and
Obscene jabs in raspberry
Demonizing the scalp of an 18th cake
The lipstick is not dark enough to
Carry a meaning here

No scent lingers as the calendar turns
Another year burnt to death as
We move further away from coincidence
And desperately memorize the lines of a
Modern work, every brushstroke an intellectual
Marvel so if we stare enough it will enfold on
Itself to glass

Guten morgen, Herr Schicksal!
Would you be so kind as to
Dissolve the peppermint stench
And leave the shower on?
I may see a reflection through the
Steam and like it more than yours
I never much liked chloroform or
Frosted roses

Settle on with
Delusions of Poland
And lazy eye tangos
With naked melodies re-vamped
By a 21st century greaser
Please don’t leave
Hail to Canon, brute of mine!

A void frame holds together Black Mountainous clouds weighing heavy on the sky, fearing an inescapable storm. The land below, no longer recognizable for shadows have rained from the absence, eroding the clarity of which once stood firm.
Still fresh and raw, the painter stops. His garrisoned red eyes entrench the being of his grotesque creation and with lost hope takes his final brushstroke. The brush, with nothing more to give, lifts an unsubstantial bit paint off of the canvas. Leaving what appears to be, a negative silhouette. The white void of a butterfly.

Hall Of Blank Portraits

To my father,
I paint you as the sea,
Ebbing and flowing
In my memory.
Drifting in the doldrums
Immortal and serene,
Sleeping forever
In blues and green,
I sit on the shore
And dip my feet,
Fearing your portrait
Will remain incomplete.

To my mother,
I sketch you in chalk,
Across a torn canvas
Where my demons walk,
Every brushstroke
Dusty and smudged,
Devoid of the colours
You have always begrudged,
I kneel in the nothingness
Cold and dank,
Praying your portrait
Will always remain blank.

To my wife
I paint a pastiche,
The detail and shading
A masterpiece,
Some of the hues
I will need to borrow
From the darker years
And the times of sorrow,
Today I blend them
Into the colours of your face
Tomorrow your portrait
Will take pride of place.

To my son
I create a collage,
An abstract of shapes
You can sabotage,
Rearranging the pieces
In the chaos of your mind,
Forming some kind of sense
From the images you find,
I watch you methodically
Cut and paste,
Your portrait will never
Be worked on in haste.

To my daughter,
I colour in pastel shades,
Subtle white lace
And multicoloured brocades,
Basking in the sunlight
That lights up your face
Where you'll always pretend
You're in a better place,
I stand on the edge,
Distant and alone,
Your portrait is only one
I will never own.

To my siblings,
I draw you as trees,
Rigid in stature,
Defying the breeze,
The roots are tangled
In crumbling rock,
The branches separate
Where they should interlock,
I stand in the forest
Alone and lost
Selling your portraits
At little or no cost.

To my friends,
I etch you in gold
So the creases that define you
Can never unfold,
The plaque will be small
But the lines true,
The faces I will polish
Will be but a few,
I reflect in the image
Blurred and a folly,
I will frame your portraits
With melancholy.

To my lovers,
I depict you weeping,
Washed in watercolours
Bleeding and seeping,
And on your tears
I will always sip
As off the parchment
You slowly drip,
I will mop your faces
Until the paper is dry,
I will keep your portraits
Until I die.

To my life,
I charcoal in greys,
Layer upon layer
For the rest of my days,
Eventually the blackness
Of sadness and rage
Will become solid layers
On a liquid page,
I will live in my comfort zone
In an empty hall
And hang blank portraits
On a forgotten wall.

©RJVHorton2014