"rockwell" poems
There’s a silverback haze
on the shallow face
of the Rockwell Ridge
folded brow
puzzled chin
and dark hollow eyes
keeping watch
over the lilies
and crane flies
and will of the wisp
Rust brown ravens
and fisher kings
delight
in the reeds off north bend
(chased by the terraced streams!)
youth blades engrain
on the favoured
and historic
Banka Memorial
Mustard
and pumpkin skies
are clipped
by a call from
the resident loon
the sounds of Buddha Bar
piercing the silence
and shaping the afternoon chord
It’s a time to make way (stream side)
seems the anuran are courting
Feb 25, 2017
Feb 25, 2017 at 2:49 PM UTC
like that pill bitter Sunday morning (after)
with a nauseating hack
the previously uneventful Tuesday
derailed
in surrealistic tale
with Auntie and Jack (and a quarter of fate)
in the 748
on a night flight
from Sherwood to Lore
reverberating waves
of imminent summer haze
river flats
and flower fields
fly weights
and silver bait
shredders and shysters
and open gates
(into those everlasting
and sweated journeys of hope)
bloods and strays
and florentine grays
(reminiscent of Rockwell fame)
running horses
and overgrown country lanes
morning grace
and gentle cheer
eyes clear
on the river pass
*blunted paddles for those ancient
and not so willing suckers!*
duke making his own way
(to the corner club)
Parsons and Poe
stream from the torn screen door
cricket cadence
and symphony of the Deere
calm and deliberate
in the soft
and silent fields
meadows open for grazing
(guineas scamper across the till)
pocket apples fill
the country ripe air
drunken bees
and chestnuts
and electric fingers
strike the surface pool
(a cedar strip wedged on the white wash dock)
baited bull heads set to cast
evenings with hearts
and Nolten Nash
may flowers bloom
across the grass
~ time unmatched ~
with blue jays
and river bends
and channel cats
...and that warm
and recurring
Coleman drift
May 16, 2017
May 16, 2017 at 11:36 PM UTC
Rolling down St. John's Heritage Highway
after Sean, my grandson's birthday party
I belt out my pioneer song with vigor
echoing across the vast beauty,
wide open, sacred spaces
pristine vistas
Norman Rockwell cows grazing
in bygone pastures happily
moo along
Driving past the yellow deer crossing sign
Florida woodlands giddyap near the edge of the road
long brown antlers prancing to
a timeless rhythm
I hope and pray that I can somehow
kindle a spark of appreciation
in my niece and grandsons
so that they may behold
the baffling greatness
and mystery that is our universe
These young'uns are mighty attached to the
virtual reality, world and landscape
of computer technology
A sprinkling of cowboy stars flash
an omnipresent wink
Sunset bonfire explodes across
the frontier horizon
Turning the corner onto Emerson Drive
smoldering scarlet orange embers
reflecting lights
shoot fireworks, launch rockets
through an ever expanding field of vision
Sep 2, 2018
Sep 2, 2018 at 1:21 PM UTC
Backed and sponsored by the cabinet
Our heads on the server and internet
BCI experiments while we're under the duvet
Foot-soldiers follow orders on their handset
Rockwell is not paranoid
They've seen us on the TV,
iPad, iPhone, and Android
The BCI app that makes us annoyed
Please God, destroy that satellite with an android
My doctor is like Sigmund Freud
Give him the anti psychotic steroid
For making money off the unemployed
Apr 12, 2021
Apr 12, 2021 at 9:33 AM UTC
Quiet are the fields
with ghosts
from pennants past
the aces
and cutters
set idly away
from the maple
spread fall
soft sounds
of Sunday
(chilling on the boneyard)
telling tales of
validated stars
and wheel house legends
the rally cap sluggers
with mahogany eyes
Mustard colors
in floating mists
give a hallowed glow
to sublime skies
scattered walkers
trip to the hole
their spit buckets
and spigots
pressed loosely into
pure life form
bikers and loners
and curious coffee goers
mill about the horn
whispering numbers
from an old
Keelman heaving
Alley lookers
and Mendoza lines
screachers, bleachers
from years gone by
dancing fingers
and cracks at the bat
moonshots
(from the big time Timmy Jim)
the 9th inning gunner
with sinker
and slider
and imposing
brush back ballz
the game day citizen
and dugout warrior
who lit it all up
in Rockwell fame
Jan 18, 2017
Jan 18, 2017 at 11:28 PM UTC
I want to live in a Norman Rockwell painting
Where I'm surrounded by the simple times
If you don't know what I mean let me explain it
It consists of front porch swings and Mom's apple pie
Sunday afternoons in Grandma's kitchen
Lazy fishing days down by the lake
Or in a Soda Shop drinking Chocolate Malts with cherries on top
As I while away the day Norman's way
Riding bikes down hills the whole time laughing
Cowboys, Indians, and Pirates all in one day
With sunsets painted red and no strangers met
No secrets kept to wanna give away
Life on parade the American way
Pride in your family and friends
Helping each other no matter race, creed, or color
Starting each meal out with an amen
Picnics at the park, hot dogs and gaming
Potato sack and three-legged racing
Nothing like today's grind taxing both the heart and mind
Which to me desperately needs replacing
With life in a Norman Rockwell painting
Dec 1, 2018
Dec 1, 2018 at 5:24 PM UTC
Josteen Yazzi said the Critic should ask his thought
on the matter of great art and literature
What do you know of art and literature, Uncle?
Nothing, he said, I think about what I do not know.
I do not know why people don't like Norman Rockwell.
Norman Rockwell painted the American Dream,
with Indians in it, some times.
I like Norman Rockwell because I know how he felt.
I saw my people live in a good world that vanished.
Magic or other wise, I remember mine,
the way
when I see
Mr. Rockwell's America as he imagined
he had seen it.
Or maybe he painted
what you should have been able to see,
but for wars and Spanish Flu and cattle barons
and reaping machines and steam and electricity.
Olaf Wieghorst coulda painted America ugly, too.
But he didn't.
Literature. I have nothing left to say, Norman Rockwell, maybe he needed a mentioning for some
reader anchored reason.
We have to deal with that more these days.
People with big old dish antennae out there,
rusting after Direct TV got a satellite to see the res,
Some o'the kids build a radio telescope, outa them three meter models,
so we are connected.
Norman Rockwell painted the Peaceful Kingdom,
just like Mr. Hicks and Mr. Kincaid,
not mr klee or mr picaso, they could image hell.
My ma liked That drippy guy, said she could see the swing of things in he's paintings, What's-isname,
Jackson, damshame, Jackson Pollak right?
but the message is in the medium, that's what my Shicheii yoosto say. Art must sing.
So I can play my drum. And she can dance.
When we think nothing about it.
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 8:45 PM UTC
Some are lissome, jowly,
blossomed or pocked, teeth
of old horses—eyes white as flour,
a few clubfoot with sisters
pregnant as October gourds. Not
Norman Rockwell’s Americans,
but they are us and live in lopsided
bungalows with leaky roofs,
heaved sidewalks, bare
refrigerators.
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 7:59 AM UTC
Could it be thirty-seven years ago nearly
that I held you in my arms
Could it be thirty-seven years
ago that I said you would make
a good young man
I never once thought
that you were to good
for this world and that
Our Lord would call you
home three months later
from me.
Not one tear did your father shed
I could not believe
He was a heartless monster to both
you and to me.
I watched them lay you in your grave
so small and tiny. I laid you in the country
that is now call Zimbabwe but always
Rhodesia to me.
I am glad that you did not live to
see its ruin and shame all the European
settlers had to leave and now it is a third world
country.
This was your home and where you were born
a proud once country and now the people starve
because it is a third world country.
I think of you often my son and how my life would be
if you had grown up and become a proud young man
I had hoped that you would be.
In Loving memory of my late son,
George Lincoln Rockwell Covington
born March 31, 1975 and passed away
on July 15, 1975
A mother's love never dies for her children.
By Lucie Elizabeth Ann Wesson, © 2011, All rights reserved.
Oct 3, 2011
Oct 3, 2011 at 7:05 PM UTC
There is always a breeze here
and there’s a white gazebo
in the shade of the house
it is all as perfect
as it would appear
to Norman Rockwell
In the back, there’s a flowerbed
the names of the flowers, I don’t recall
and perhaps
never knew;
but the names on the headstones that sleep there
I’ve always known
and I will remember them
until my name is worked into a rock as well
Over here used to be
nothing,
but now there is
a taller than tall apple tree
as old as I am
and twice as wise
I come here sometimes when
life gets too congested and I
need to breathe
or sometimes just when
I have nothing else to do
but think and write about things
I don’t know
I sit back in the gazebo
pretending to admire the comforting cornfield’s endlessness
like the simple man I sometimes wish I was
I imagine I believe in God
or at least, Heaven
and pretend to feel them looking down at me
*I smile at myself
on their behalf*
I think about all the years
my grandpa spent building that house
and the stories he told me, my father,
about the kind of mother she was
and I think it would make them happy
to know that someone hasn’t forgotten
about the place that,
for some reason, I can’t quite figure out,
always has this breeze
Sep 28, 2011
Sep 28, 2011 at 12:19 PM UTC
Bows and ribbons placed on gifts,
Uplifting holiday, your spirit it lifts.
Another birthday celebration with cake and candle,
Depression rates high, holidays are hard to handle.
Family and friends like to get together,
Tends to be cold, beware snowy weather.
Drinking some cheer and eating your feast,
Stuffing with side dishes, turkey the beast.
Trimming a tree and placing lights on the house,
Not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse.
Saint Nick is coming, he lands on the roof,
Slides down the chimney then suddenly ****
Presents are stacked, up high as can be,
Barely can see the lights on the tree.
Santa has eaten the cookies, and drained all the milk,
Mom got diamond earrings, and a dress made of silk.
This sounds like a scene, from a Rockwell play,
Easy to loose sight, of what were celebrating today.
The birth of the greatest man on the Earth,
Read the Bible, miracles show his real worth,
Worried and cared about every living soul,
Love and good wishes he did easily dole.
Born in poverty, his first bed was a manger,
In thirty three years he would be in real danger.
Those years he spent, spreading the word of God,
Be of good faith, before your laid under the sod.
Love and cherish each other, and this place,
Ascending into heaven, sharing my fathers space.
Everybody enjoy Christmas, a great time of the year,
Happy birthday to Jesus, his spirit is still here!
Please visit poemsbypaul.com
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 2:23 AM UTC
write me a holiday song
one that doesn't revolve around lies
one that is full of the lows and the highs
not It's a Wonderful Life in disguise
Dad not quite sober
Gifts not all wrapped
Hugs from old aunties
In the hallway you're trapped
Write me a holiday song
Moms' in the kitchen
The kids by the tree
The men all are waiting
For dinner at three
Write me a holiday song
Life's not all wrapped up
With holiday bows
Christmas in real life
Is not Rudolph's nose
Write me a holiday song
People all argue
Fights will break out
Kids all are screaming
The good will's gone out
Write me a holiday song
write me a holiday song
one that doesn't revolve around lies
one that is full of the lows and the highs
not It's a Wonderful Life in disguise
The aunts and the uncles
and all other kin
Go to church Christmas Eve
To be absolved of their sins
Write me a holiday song
I'm sure Norman Rockwell
Didn't have real life in mind
When those Post cover pictures
He sat down and designed
Write me a holiday song
Bing Crosby is singing
While the massacre starts
Of the ham and the turkey
And other odd parts
Write me a holiday song
Stuff not on the table
Stuff left in the car
Eighteen conversations
Frozen beer in the car
Write me a holiday song
The facade is cracking
Real life has snuck in
Christmas is not a movie
It's just lead painted tin
Write me a holiday song
No one remembers
The bad times of the past
It just took a moment
It all happened so fast
Write me a holiday song
write me a holiday song
one that doesn't revolve around lies
one that is full of the lows and the highs
not It's a Wonderful Life in disguise
Write me a holiday song
One of truths and of memories
Of all that went wrong
I think I will smile
And I might sing along
Please write me a holiday song
Write me a holiday song
If I like it...I will sing along
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 12:07 AM UTC
Norman Rockwell and Jim Unger
Artists from my past
I've met one but not the other
A memory that will last
Who the hell is Bertrand Russell?
I asked over a drink
A man who changed the world forever
Changed the way we think
I remember the Norman Rockwell painting
It's burned deep inside my mind
But, I have got a copy
It's the best one that you'll find
An artist unknown to others
But, a special one to me
My father drew old Russell
It's quite a piece to see
It's never been inside a book
And never will it be
But, Bertrand Russells' wrinkles
Mean a lot to me
Jim Unger and his Herman
Were a favorite of my brother
The artist and his humour
Were unlike any other
We met him at a signing
My brother brought his art
He showed it to Jim Unger
He broke my brother's heart
My brother was an artist
Just like my Dad as well
Their art, not for the public
Their art, was not to sell
Their art should be remembered
Their art should be displayed
Like a vintage guitar sitting
It's better if it's played
So, now two artists pictures
Hidden for an age
Will be shown, for everybody
On a printed page
I give you first, my brother
Ian Turner was his name
No longer is he with us
But, this will show he came
The second one, my father
John Turner, is his name
His drawing days behind him
But, man did he have game
So, here for your enjoyment
Rockwell via Turner number one
Followed by Ungers' Herman
That was done by Turner's son
Jul 12, 2020
Jul 12, 2020 at 9:57 AM UTC
Your childhood plaything
Became your clone
You traded crayons for
Your mother’s lipstick
Children’s fairy tales for
****** romance paperbacks
Your room’s rose wallpaper is
Canopied with Audrey Hepburn posters
At night, you braided your hair
For those sophisticated waves
You ****** on lemons
To perfect your pout, and
Brushed with baking soda
To bleach your teeth
Your envy: the doll’s porcelain skin—
Not too unlike the seat cover
You clutched after meals,
To keep the spirit clean.
Jul 14, 2010
Jul 14, 2010 at 6:43 PM UTC
thou art
my McDonald’s
my Walmart
if Norman Rockwell were alive
he would paint you,
pay tribute to you
immortalize you in two dimensions
allow you to believe
you would stride forever
like golden arches
and prices that end in the magical, mystical 7
but alas, nothing that smells and tastes of today
or is “Made in China”
sold by blue apron clad armies
will be etched on mountain sides
you, like the Big Mac
will be recycled in short order
and surrender helplessly
to the mocking march of time
Apr 24, 2012
Apr 24, 2012 at 5:44 PM UTC
I’d like to think I am dead,
like an old Maine farm left to decay.
I crumble demurely into the river and grass.
Chickens gone by breakfast, you by crepuscule;
Rockwell never painted defeat or loss of limb
but never has he seen your lips,
cracked with solitude, fortitude, secrets, and
the faint music of a funeral pyre.
I always remembered you,
rising with the sun and whispers,
sweeping the porch, scattering leaves and harvest:
scalding coffee and soft hands on this October Day—
I cannot recall for the life of me—
what color were your eyes.
Now I am wrinkled, small, and tired,
left amongst gentle picket fences,
whitewashed walls, creased linen,
and every single day that I wasted those
silent early oatmeal mornings.
Just so you know and don’t worry, in case you’re worrying,
I still get chilly at night, and yes I kept your flannel shirt; and oh I forgot to say:
I cheated at Monopoly.
--my hands crack in the pastoral stillness.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 11:24 AM UTC
I've been having a good one this year
I've been creative
I've been enjoying the music
I've been appreciating the decor
But melancholy never ceases to creep in
The loved ones who are gone for good--my dad, my brother, a few friends, faulty relationships
Expectations
Expectations always come
Though I try to banish them
Expectations of a perfect holiday
Of a Norman Rockwell time with everyone in a perfect scene
So goes the melancholy
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 3:49 PM UTC
there were never pies on the
window counter
or cakes baking in the oven
there was never the smell of
home style type of cooking
in our house
fried chicken came out of a
box; frozen and dropped into
the fry daddy
we’d listen closely to see if
you could hear the chicken’s
soul scream in the greases soup
dessert was apples from the tree,
some day’s you get them before they
hit the ground, others you ate around
the soft spots
conversation was initiated by whatever
news story was airing, commercials
for **** breaks
while the pie was never there,
the cake just a dream,
while home made fried chicken was another
time period
this was still home, this was still where the heart was
in-between drunken fights over finances, despite cold winter
nights on hand cut wood, regardless of
living on the edge of over every
time we began to think it was safe to feel safe.
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 11:01 PM UTC
Norman Rockwell weekend
Faded baseball gloves
Slick stones off the water
Fishing for lost loves
Boathouse Road revival
Rope swing double back flips
Red serape twilight
Rolling back for night dips
Adirondack north woods
Boy Scout jamboree
Telling age-old stories
Felling age-old trees
Back seat back road banter
Front seat small town blues
Lukewarm diner coffee
Corner TV news
Swearing off old demons
Swearing at red lights
Chasing down old crushes
Long into the night
Headlights on the highway
Headlamps in the mines
Mountains in the rear view
Main Street on my mind
Norman Rockwell weekend
Corduroy on wool
Campfire snap and sparkle
All-nighters to pull
Oct 3, 2016
Oct 3, 2016 at 4:57 PM UTC
I learned how to love the same day I learned how to run,
Cigarettes make the first part easier and the second a hell of a lot harder
So on nights like this where we run out of breath, for one reason or another, we make **** sure that the radio tells us what we wanna hear;
Kingdom come in somebody's eyes, a straight shot up from the highway into the stars, a kiss from a red haired girl with the sweetest melodies,
A place to run to, a place of our own, a place where we can know what freedom is and not just what it isn't
Our dead friends in the passenger seat for one more ride, alive and electric and singing loud enough to wake heaven and let 'em know what they're missing out on,
Our dying country stretched before us like a Norman Rockwell painting while we live like characters in a Springsteen song, wild and desperate and without a home to hold us back,
Our lovers waiting for us somewhere between the sunrise and the B side of the album, all open arms and 4th of July lips to kiss clean our worn and ***** souls and deliver us from our evils,
So on these nights where we suffocate under the tremendous weight of living,
We still have each other, and we still have the radio,
And we can still remember how to breathe a little easier
Oct 4, 2016
Oct 4, 2016 at 1:59 AM UTC
more often than not, a knightly surge
combs a pawn me,
especially after the stroke of midnight, when
hermetically sealed in my rookery,
where bats in the belfry
flap their wings at the speed
of sound times ten
thence, this king heads to his counting house
(which doubles asthma
Perkiomen Valley bishopric)
to economize on space,
especially during tax time
(as April fifteenth slowly approaches,
me heartbeat doth) quicken
though becalmed, when imbibing
idyllic, fantastic, and bucolic kingdom
Americana paintings courtesy, sans nomen
Percevel Rockwell, thus jitteriness pacified,
particularly speaking
on the telly phone with Ken
Burns, whose trademark documentaries,
particularly War between the States,
where even roosting hen
got into the frayed scrimmage vis a vis, even
chilly being egged on to surrender as Ben
a fit to this American
Civil War Yankee incarnate,
whose doodling word
ya probably don't give a hoot -Amen!
Mar 18, 2018
Mar 18, 2018 at 2:21 AM UTC
I was told if I ate worms,
I could fly.
Ever since, I've stepped over sun-baked sidewalk worms.
I recall eating an orchard apple from the ground.
That didn't end well.
Rockwell suggested frying them.
Hamlet punned about worms travelling through a King.
Don't be called a worm.
Don't worm your way in,
You'll likely find a hook.
I'm forever grounded.
The worm hasn't turned.
Mar 31, 2021
Mar 31, 2021 at 11:47 AM UTC
so there's this girl,
with a huge grin on her face,
walking down the devils corridor,
her eyes gleam,
with shade of green you've never seen before,
so there's this girl sitting on her bed,
with tears spilling over one other,
and wrists ridden with blood,
her weak hands trembling form the searing pain of her reality,
her eyes they hold your gaze,
the gaze you can't seem to pull away from,
and as you stare,
you still have yet to figure it out,
you still have yet to finally SEE
even right here in this moment that will live on forever through eternity,
this moment that will mean absolutely nothing to everyone and everything else
in this world,
you still do not see.
you still do not comprehend.
so there's this girl walking through the doorway, leading to her inevitable blood bath, her inevitable jump,
with her head held high,
and laughter ringing throughout all their ears,
and generic confidence oozing out of every vein leading them to believe that she truly is confident.
words of wisdom flowing from her mouth leading them to believe that she herself actually uses her own advice,
leading them all to believe that she is strong.
The flicker in her eyes, the slight crack,
finally taking a home run for her heart,
is what they believed her to be brushing something off.
Her retaliation and rude finger gestures make them believe that she HONESTLY does not give one ******* **** as to what they think,
her quieted yells and invisible blows to their sensitive ego's,
convinces everyone that she is bold
she is strong
she is confident
that when she goes home
she does not think about their words
that when she goes home it is a Norman Rockwell scene everyday
that her smile does not leave her face,
that it is imbedded into her entire essence.
so there's this girl walking through her front door,
ready to drop,
ready to fall,
to finally breathe,
yet she cannot.
as their words replay through her head
over
and
over
and
over
and
over
and
over
and
over
and
over
again
she cannot take it.
the slits in her flesh
they are not enough
anymore
well I suppose they never really were
so there's this girl walking up to a mountain
so there's this girl calling the one her heart and happiness lies with,
the one she met through an accident,
the one who's touch she never felt,
the one who's oh so much older,
the one who made her smile through tears,
the one who CARED,
saying that she loves him and is sorry.
so there's this girl throwing her phone away
down to the ground where her body will soon lie
so there's this girl running
off
the edge
and free falling
throughout the
A
I
R
until her fragile body slams against the bottom,
and her last breathe is exhaled,
and her head is finally awoken.
as she sits up in bed,
she realizes that this is what our world has become.
that this is how so many people live their life.
no, this is not living
this is taking one step in front of the other
this is one huge big lie
that never ends
this is not what it should be
yet
it
is
for
all
to
many
so here I end saying
WAKE UP.
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 3:05 PM UTC
i'll concede to this fact, sometimes Hollywood
does a decent film,
i'm starting to see a tract of:
as far as black comedies go...
no one does black comedies as good as
the H'americans...
maybe i was born too late
to laugh at the British stuff from...
whenever it was in the past century...
and whatever the new quirk is about...
i don't get it...
but H'american black comedy?
pitched genius...
sure... about schmidt
was labelled a black comedy...
but in comparison to what i've just
watched?
i.e. *three billboards outside ebbing,
missouri*?
out-stand-ing...
i'm not saying i'm much of
a film critic... but given the story
resembles the "archetype" of retribution...
revenge, or there-lack-of,
akin to the movie secret in their eyes...
retribution isn't concentrated on
the focus of the murderer, ******
it spreads... everyone is somehow affected
by each others' blame-game-shaming-fest...
everyone can have their soppy
story, their two cents thrown into
the lucky fountain...
and that's the brilliance of the movie:
the victim-hood tactics diffuse -
because everyone has a sad story,
the sad story isn't the story at all:
it's how people still manage to congregate
around a shining bright light
and pull along...
but that's still not the ultimate
genius of
*three billboards outside ebbing,
missouri*...
a well deserved supporting actor
Oscar for sam rockwell
playing jason dixon...
why?
he's the subtle sub-story
of the antihero archetype...
the sub-story just sits there,
subtle... but eventually more gripping...
it's not you want justice to be served...
or you're guessing who did it...
unlike in the instance
of secret in their eyes...
where the grief overburdens
the lead role...
there's a variant of being enraged
in a tragicomic way of
the lead in *three billboards outside ebbing,
missouri*...
perhaps because the lead role has
interactions with her remaining offspring,
and there's an abusive husband
hanging around...
but for me...
transfiguration...
like that Jesus bit...
the film is really all about
the antihero...
and thank god...
another superhero movie
and i'm going to puke...
what with deadpool being the other
antihero...
but unlike that sort of antihero story...
this is so genius in how subtle it is...
a well deserved supporting actor Oscar...
well done.
Nov 2, 2018
Nov 2, 2018 at 10:53 AM UTC
I've confined the greatest hits of Marx
to a playlist
and periodically map over them with dull,
grasping eyes, when desperate for talking points
or anti-capitalism ideation
The works of Bukowski, Poe, Emerson,
tethered to my fingertips where I can stave
them off enough to hold concept
but unearth no meaning
I can pull and manipulate quotes
like nobody's business
I googled Sigmund Freud once
because I forgot how to spell his name
If photos could become life
and give justice to experience and wealth,
I would be Frank Lloyd Wright
If John Muir had an iPhone,
he would be as distracted and rooted
Somehow he died surrounded by angels
at the advent of advertising and public relations;
Emily Dickinson would have been
an Instagram model and romanticized
mental illness
I gasp in admiration and nostalgia
at Rockwell, but that world never existed
beyond his oil, canvas and scope
If the people that wrote the history books
had to read them, they would be
as insatiable as me.
All we are is illusions of aesthetics
to one another
Trapped in the vaguely perfect candor
of rehearsed moments
Tripped up and mired in perspective
because we aren't as lost as they
Only lost to ourselves
The library of my mind relies
on binary communication,
programmed in arbitration
And inside, there's a small child
whose heart still desires to play
But he's overwhelmed and crying for help
In the corner, a yearning spirit
is steadfast and pacified
Forming a benchmark of baseline bullet points
Wrought with cynicism
I am not smart
I am not profound
I am not layered
I am not organic
I am not the next great American anything
Jul 1, 2017
Jul 1, 2017 at 8:23 PM UTC