"watercolours" poems
Sun slits in through slats
of kitchen window blinds
and she is alone.
The art major is cooking
spaghetti,
pretending her thrifted T-shirt
bearing a cotton copy
of Campbell's Soup Cans
is not stained with tears and blood.
Oh, but that's hysterics and
hyperbole;
art has a tendency of making its worshippers
melodramatic...no?
The blood is only tomato sauce
and the tears...
well, what are tears but
water and salt?
After all, dramatizing the
mundane is just one awkward shade
of artistic temperament.
Visualizing life through
a heavy silk screen.
The art major sighs and
stirs.
The spaghetti is redder and
redder as she cooks.
Just as
her paintings bleed more blood
as she dangles a brush over them -
the teary-eyed watercolours.
The art major has decided
that drawing out extremities
of colour
might transform
her own life into
a pop of a Warhol painting.
The art major sighs and
stirs.
She thinks, tries to
think
in technicolour.
Today's thought-pencilled thesis
concludes (like a brush stroke of uncertain finality) that
love is the red of tomato soup cans.
Anger is the boil, passion is
the gulp,
danger, caution, warning,
the hot breaths, fleeting warmths,
the burn and sweet and tang.
She looks down at the
scarlet of
Warhol's soup cans,
blooming in worn out cotton
on her chest.
It might as well be blood, she
thinks.
It is,
it is,
it is.
Blood red love -
tomato soup cans.
Sun sets in slits
through kitchen window blinds
and she is still alone.
The art major sighs and
stirs.
The spaghetti is ready.
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 6:41 AM UTC
You noticed, when you last
saw Betty the evening she
was dying, in the curtained
off area of the ward, that she
was wearing around her neck,
the wooden rosary you had
given her some months before.
Her husband had telephoned
you and said she was dying and
she wanted to see you. But when
you arrived she was already on
her way out, her eyes closed,
the death rattle taking hold,
her husband and her children
about her bed. The rosary, a
brown wooden cross with a
metallic Christ, was still there,
the Christ lying where her night
gown covered ******* slowly
rose and fell. When you’d seen
her some months back, in the
high street, she said she would
learn the prayers of the rosary,
and how grateful she was to you
for the gift, and she fingered it
there and then, her thumb and
finger rubbing over the Christ.
You’d first met her a year or so
before as she sketched the large
gardens you visited as a group.
Her hand guiding the pencil as
the image was translated onto
the sketch pad, her eyes scanning
what it was she wanted to capture
in all its beauty. I like capturing
churches, she had said, watercolours
and pencil or charcoal as my aids.
You remembered words that evening
as she lay there dying from cancer,
the curtained area dim and silent
except for the rattling breath, just Betty
and the rosary in the end, and your
deep love and the unwanted death.
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 9:46 AM UTC
sometimes
if you stop breathing
you can hear
you can hear the sound
of the single drop of water
as it drips
onto a bit of tin
amidst the grass and the mud
or the sound of the ducks’
feathers as they play
in the eddies
or the sound of the sun
as it rises over the grey canal
kissing it to life
over treetops that are
japanese watercolours
and boats moored in the marina
memories of a time gone by
sometimes
if you stop breathing
you can feel
you can feel the breeze
on the hair of your arms
the wind as it chills your fingers
and you exhale
dragon breath
sometimes
if you stop breathing
you can feel
life
in death
sometimes
if you stop breathing
you gasp
as you take in the details
the masthead
on a boat
a dragon
with horns?
a greek god
to keep storms away?
hammered iron and blue
a totem
a good luck charm
a protective spell
sometimes
if you stop breathing
everything fades
and all we have
is the now
the single breath
pain vanishes
and all that remains
is bliss
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 3:29 AM UTC
stars, the softest
prints, the watercolours
of the night, washed
in a rich green sea,
shining like prisms,
forgetful as the shadows of the moon
bold, restful bridge of the tide.
Jul 31, 2015
Jul 31, 2015 at 10:44 AM UTC
Don't let a piece of paper define you
You write who you are
You don't rub out
You leave a mark
Your romance carved into trees
Your sadness watercolours of ink
Your happiness an explosion of paint
Your anger scrunched up beside the bin
You write essays on stories you don't care for
Read something that makes your heart cling to your chest seeking love
Something that makes your brain question the very beauty of life
Something that gives you goosebumps with feelings you cant explain
They are scared of how strong you really are
Schools don't educate they dictate
Educate yourself
You are the greatest teacher
Your brain is the self made nuke
They are scared you are going to blow
A war that is your true self
Its better to fight standing than fearing on your knees.
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 5:53 PM UTC
it sounds like planes taking flight,
like foreboding,
like a hoard of wasps,
and then it breaks into melody;
it went from storming winds
to a spa reception
meditation:
inhale, exhale
dull these sharp edges,
take me out of my head;
i can see you
laid out on white cotton sheets,
your dark hair fanned
against the pillows on my bed.
no, i don't want to
do anything,
other than lie with you,
feel your warmth and...
i look at you and
tears brim these tired eyes.
insomnia's an artist
painting shadows on my lids,
but you reach out
and brush your fingertips against my cheek;
suddenly i'm alive,
your watercolours vibrant on my skin;
i'm overflowing with emotion
but you make it feel okay
to drown,
to let it in.
you'll never have any idea
of how much i think about you
i think, maybe, i would feel guilty
if i knew how to
but i don't do remorse,
just as you don't do...
well. this.
any of this.
try not to, anyway
things don't always
work out
the way we plan;
but it's okay,
we can make more plans
together, somehow
because you promised me you'd live
and i swore i'd do the same.
May 10, 2017
May 10, 2017 at 2:41 PM UTC
bernie the cheese
collapsed at the side
of the road
his measured response depleted
he watches as she folds up
her neat and meticulously spelled words
plied on silver tongue into her rucksack
and through such ******* ********** of kings english
she entices him ever onward where
faint lines can be sought
and yet to be found
that echo the face of true madness
its laughing sweating continence
painted with watercolours and
can only be seen in the reflection of
a mirror reflecting another mirrors image
her face slowly releases its dire grip
and her eye looses it screaming aspect
as she finds herself alone on the ***** alleys cobblestones
the battered dumpsters spilling treasures for the divers to find
she begins to hum a beatles tune from '63
and fingers the lace shawl hiding her deformed mind
trying once more to capture that vast lost feeling from
girlhood that dances a
dubious little jig on her headstone of the heart
singing 'lookie here....look at whats buried here'
she remembers his face but not his name
he drove a silver buick with a skull painted on the hood
his blond features engraved in the notions
his words mixed with foul smelling chicken soup
he was a soup of the day in her salad years
bernie the cheese
chews on the charbroiled taste of his
blowup doll lover's lips and tries to say
the three magic words
'made in china'??
his own words spent he casts about
in terror for a phrase or two to quote from
the masters of deception
who gather round in long grey coats
sinister eyes on the fruits of his labour
their wooden faces warped by rain
their mouths only a dim perceived line of
mumbles written in childlike scrawl
on the backs of closet doors
we hide here because we cannot see
therefore we cannot be seen
you cant touch me because i cannot feel
they gift him at price unnamed some loose parable
naught more that glib reprise of his own perilous straights
his is the beast that labours in their stead
he is their human face
she is but the road they walk today
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 7:36 AM UTC
I think Rain is the weary humanitarian.
She’s the voice of reason,drowning the world in throbbing anger with watercolours, smudging pavement and hesitant minds. Not tears, or sympathy, she’s yelling for us in pristine drops of impatience.
Wake up! What are you doing?!
She whispers so loud, she’ll tear us apart,ground swollen with her heartfelt anger. She hates us, really. She’ll erase us away,no laugh on her lips. Just the rat-a-tat of old typewriter keys and maleficent moisture.
Oct 1, 2010
Oct 1, 2010 at 7:45 AM UTC
Your space is in the sky where there is no ground, angel.
You are the reason why earth revolves around sun.
You are the reason why all stars flicker delicately.
You are the reason why magnolia blooms.
You are the reason why my heart opens up like confessing man.
You are the reason why I'm standing repentant before God.
You are the reason why I paint reality with celestial watercolours.
You are the reason why breath makes port in my mouth.
You are the reason why vision of love is alive in my heart.
You are the reason why I open curious eyes in the morning.
You are the reason why flowers near extinction are worth saving.
You are the reason why my thoughts become crystalline.
You are the reason why torrential rain falls after airless weather.
You are the reason why I hear quietly sneaking answers to nagging questions.
You are the reason why opus of birth of love plays in my head.
Your sinister indifference cauterizes sore wounds in my heart.
I would give you my soul with everything I possess.
I have never even touched your fragile hands, your impatient lips.
Will you open like rose petals together with sun wandering horizon?
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 3:03 PM UTC
you were the brilliance of midnight sky,
the watercolours in the morning dew.
i know i promised i would make it right,
i know i said that i'd come back for you.
but there's a warning in the red and white,
it sounds like someone's gonna lose control.
and i don't think i'll make it home tonight,
no, i don't think i can survive this fall.
you were the sunlight, boastful in its pride,
the subtle shift before the darkness grew.
i'm sorry that i couldn't make it right,
i'm sorry that i can't come back for you.
Jul 14, 2023
Jul 14, 2023 at 11:52 AM UTC
_Dream your life in watercolours,
Live your life in oils,
Frame your canvases with time and distance;
Hang each by a silver thread,
In a windowed gallery of memories,
Exhibit often and without discrimination;
Celebrate the beauty in your clumsiest brushwork,
Accept the imperfections in your mastery,
Reshape your truths, as light plays and colour transforms._
Sep 11, 2019
Sep 11, 2019 at 10:31 PM UTC
Happy thing -
Come fiercely.
Bend me like a tulip at midnight,
Make something out of me,
Smoke out my *****
And saddle it in gemstones,
Gallop me like a tongue-twisted
Traveller into the
Whole globe’s bedrooms.
Happy happy thing -
Push me!
Make something out of me!
Kid me,
Front me,
Strike me dancing like a hot
Stone,
Hand me cigarettes that I’ll light
From the last one,
And the second to last one,
And the next one.
Happy thing!
Ohhh come colourfully!
Make the world all-a-bright,
Make red as red as a big red love
Or a spitsuckled cherry gumdrop
Of red-red-red-red-red,
Make yellow smear itself
like crushed cats eyes,
Make pastels all pennysweets
And green so luminous that
Clock hands can’t even dream of it.
You beautiful
*******
Happy
Thing!
You happy happy happy thing…!
Songs are burning!
And planets are droaning!
And London is sleeeeeeping,
And the morning is leaping at me!
Is it leaping at you?
My happy thing,
Come noisily.
Sit with me jabbering,
Jack off with me,
Snog me,
Pull apart my face and
Absolutely ************* drench me
In come.
Happy thing,
Pierce me,
Make me a Sebastian,
Riddle me with spears and watch me
Laugh out the blood,
Happy thing,
Come quickly.
Take my hand and run with me.
They’re shooting at us,
Making saints of us,
And they’ll get us y’know, they’ll get us, they’ll get us –
Happy thing
Come on now dear,
I know the watercolours are running but
Don’t they look pretty
dropping as keenly as our tears –
being caught is just another reason to escape!
Happy thing,
Don’t swallow that.
Are we lowering ourselves?
Are they poking holes in us?
Oh no,
Are they sinking us?
Happy thing,
I hope you always
Come fiercely,
Colours aren’t the same now
And ******* is just a drone of biology.
I promise that
next time we'll be immortal.
Next time we’ll have learned
How to really, really run.
Sep 16, 2013
Sep 16, 2013 at 3:41 PM UTC
From the softness of her wrist
Bleeds vibrant shades of red
But all she sees is black and white
A beating heart but dead
As tears cascade across her cheek
From kaleidoscopic eyes
Feels not but the paralysis
Sees only greyer skies
So blind to her own beauty
She breathes her final breath
Gone are the watercolours
Now shadowed by her death
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 12:39 PM UTC
Verse One
A simple complication
Shapes the way we see ourselves,
A fatal disconnection,
To be just like everyone else,
Find the spark in your heart
And let out the flames,
Kiss the scars on your arms,
You were never to blame,
Turn on the lights in your mind
And throw out the dark,
You were never made to break this way,
Trauma never fades to grey
Chorus
Paint with watercolours from your tears,
A prism you made from your fear,
Chase the spectrum and touch the light,
Crystal clear and it shines through the glass
Of your heavy soul,
You want to be whole,
Fill the cracks in the flaws only you can see,
Perfection isn't what it seems to be.
Verse Two
A desperate resignation,
Starve your body from the hate,
A fatal designation,
Purging pain until it's too late,
Put the nightmares to bed,
And lock up the door,
The voices will cease to exist any more,
Kiss the scars on your thighs,
And fall in love with your skin,
You will never break again,
You are stronger than the strongest of them
Chorus
Paint with watercolours from your tears,
A prism you made from your fear,
Chase the spectrum and touch the light,
Crystal clear and it shines through the glass
Of your heavy soul,
You want to be whole,
Fill the cracks in the flaws only you can see,
Perfection isn't what it seems to be.
Bridge
Rainbow refractions of years to come,
Mirrors that show the person you've become,
Crystal reflections
Will show unique complexions
Of yourself,
Perfect the way you are,
You've put up a fight and you've come so far
Chorus (x2)
Paint with watercolours from your tears,
A prism you made from your fear,
Chase the spectrum and touch the light,
Crystal clear and it shines through the glass,
Of your heavy soul,
You want to be whole,
Fill the cracks in the flaws only you can see,
Perfection isn't what it seems to be.
Jan 25, 2014
Jan 25, 2014 at 3:40 PM UTC
Pathos puddles in young dimples when she raises the gun,
a teardrop reflected in Grandfather’s blurry eye.
She ***** the hammer, aligns the bullet
on the stroke of sepia midnight.
Misery, reflected in her tears when he looks up,
ears ringing before she squeezes the trigger;
wags his tail to Grandfather’s rhythmic chime,
licks his tumour-filled belly one more time.
Like a bandit cloaked in purple and ochre camouflage,
a stale breeze slips through the window and thieves;
the last glimmer of hope kidnapped and forced
into mushroom cloud getaway cars.
Beyond empty stables, prairie grass whispers last rites,
dry and silver solemn sympathy-words
that fill the room, watercolours of life
reflected in death, as it is, in bloom.
May 1, 2012
May 1, 2012 at 12:58 AM UTC
they say with lovers time stands still,
i didn't fully understand until one rainy morning in paris. you'd let me wander aimlessly around my favourite bookstore for hours, smiling sweetly at my excitement even though you hadn't read the prose. you escaped into the morning air, i walked out of the doorway to find you and the hands of time silenced. there you were, tucked underneath the dew; the crimson morning sun lighting you up. you were deep in conversation with a lone artist, mesmerized by her work. the watercolours dancing in your eyes. i thought you looked so beautiful, that the notre dame behind you dwarfed in comparison. in that second i knew i would spend forever trying to keep that look in your eyes.
Jun 11, 2019
Jun 11, 2019 at 3:54 AM UTC
~
If only raindrops
were love’s watercolours,
I’d have no need
for sunny days
Aug 5, 2015
Aug 5, 2015 at 7:26 AM UTC
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
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 1:47 AM UTC
The world is an ocean
Thick and raging waves
With shoals of people
Rainbows of colour
Beautiful to see and hear
Sad they don’t all get along
Their colours combined would amaze
Salted spray, cracked lips and sore throats
They talk through the ache anyway
Gallons of water never to drink
There are no tears in the sea to blink
Apr 22, 2017
Apr 22, 2017 at 8:24 PM UTC
As hands twist, stumbling through doors locked made of
wood pulp and ink and the light underneath seems to
illuminate the sleep in our eyes, it reveals too the cracks in
the corners, the silver slithers and the rust.
To dart across country remains the aim but now many an
Inn will beckon with its burning hearth each more
welcoming than the last. The food more exotic, the crowd
merrier.
Crackling azure wraps and warps, and their eyes glow
with milken dullness. Bereft of colour this solemn matter
thirsts and hungers to consume, to gorge, to shine
postcards of brightly spotted watercolours.
No longer can we trace a finger down the side of a tree, to
remain locked in a single room melting wax and judging
hats.
The wood swung and thus the rope, born 200 years too
late, when was the last time we heard wanderlust not for
the road? The jailer has recaptured us not with wooden
sigils but copper rods and numbers. A primordial beast
slain not by magical tome but by black powder. The
renaissance is over.
Jan 3, 2021
Jan 3, 2021 at 11:25 AM UTC
*I think I would rather have had gills than lungs.
To live and breathe under water would be such a ******* blessing.
A place where the icy touch of water smooths over the rough, aching edges of your skin.
A place where your screams dwindle to mere echoes at the distance of a hand-width.
Where sins wash like watercolours in the purple ache of night.
But we are creatures of the land.
Cursed with bipedalism and an unbridled view of the stars.
Naively destined to watch a movie with a happy ending,
When your own life is a car crash,
And hope.*
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 1:26 AM UTC
The colour red strewn through the rocks
Iron rusting over years
Untainted by The touch of man
With exception of tourists
Oils slowly eroding, but untouched
By our prided advancements
Miles of peaks attracting the world
Though, still wild in the sense we define
A refuge from the bustle of life
We ascribe ourselves to
At least to me, it is a place to be alone, to meditate
With acres of trees, existing and feeling with them
Pulling from their ancient wisdom
To sit high upon a peak
With notebook in hand and a pen in the other
My only defense against the human condition
Peering out as far as my feeble eyes will allow
Clouds paint elegant watercolours
With the rays of the sun
Storms creating drama and feeling
But I am above it all as Zarathustra was
But I am compelled to return
As was he, back to the hives of my birth
To the city that Jack and his cohorts
Loved so much, as do myself
This place that has more sun
Than the marketed beaches of paradise
It may snow here, but that is the beauty of it all
The variety of seasons, it is not all-arctic wasteland
In the winter months
One day I may be swathed in layers
Against the cold, the next
I can walk around open to the elements,
What other place is the weather so differentiable?
A couple hours’ drive and you can be
In a winter wonderland or arid city
An arctic paradise with acres of fresh powder
That many do not take the time to sit,
Just sit; in a supple seat.
Perfectly formed to the contours of your body
And look out; simply look out.
At what is surround you; high above everything
Too often do we become obsessed
With the tiny oases of ski resorts
And forget the solitude and beauty of its telos
It’s not the resorts I love,
But the mountains themselves; that is my attraction.
A place to carve your own path, to find yourself
This is my home, a sojourn for the Beaten
As they traveled this country,
for those on the trail settling from sea to shining sea
Facing the fortress of rock, ice, and pine
I may stray for spans of time, travel the word and sea,
But I shall always come back to pay homage
To the place that has sculpted me
And given me sanctuary from society
Colorado
Feb 28, 2013
Feb 28, 2013 at 12:40 PM UTC
I never much cared for watercolours
I always lose the pigments in the wash
vistas doomed to be overcast
in the pine groves wept from a flaking brush.
I don't like that kind of responsibility.
Give me oil. Thick like Cleopatra's
the meat of all mediums
heat the world with ochre, umber, crimson
spread me with a knife, with sinning hands
my eyes flick around the canvas
wipe the frosting on my red dress
a guilty nun's habit.
But the tide is out again.
The spectrum fades.
Today is for watercolours.
I'll drip steadily from the canvas
and live in the stains on the hardwood floor
peering upward and waiting for April.
Mar 18, 2013
Mar 18, 2013 at 11:25 AM UTC
peeling walls, cracked floors
dusty filigrees, in fake gold,
kitsch figurines, cheap watercolours;
Jerusalem hangs on the wall.
the music played, and I heard the viola
- often lost between the violin and cello -
but this time, I heard the viola sang:
peaceful and pure, wise and warm.
life, petty, greedy and ******
dissolves in ethereal beauty;
you can take all my money:
I’ve seen heaven, and life’s worthy after all.
Jun 7, 2019
Jun 7, 2019 at 2:27 AM UTC