"armchair psychology'

For some damn reason that finally

I don’t want to understand,

it took me 4 decades of adult life

to learn how to procure an easy chair

 

for my living room and I can tell you

for a fact that those soft and simpleton

gods of COMFORT and EASE never

loafed in a more grateful home.

Winter's Rose

Sunrise West of Otay Mtn

'MALE AND FEMALE'

'Dames and Din'

'Rosebud' original painting-- 36"x30" acrylic on canvas

Rose Who's Beginning to Think It's a Rose

"Rosebuds" new paintings 30"x36" acrylic on canvas

the rose who thought it was a strawberry

the rose who thought it was an owl....

AN EVENING, SITTING

 "He knows that all paths are impossible and thus he walks them calmly in the night.”  Federico Garcia Lorca on ‘the poet’

 

The smell of books in a public library contains infinities, these well ordered shelves call my name in a seductive whispering of words within words within houses of secrets.

That feeling returns unbidden when aloneness and a moody half-dark basement collude to bring me somewhere strange yet also almost known like a home from another life.

Wind rustles tree leaves outside my upstairs window in a chilled November night. The street outside is quiet and waits like a maiden emptied for her meandering man.

Where is fertility to be found asked the barren merchant? Not in crumpled money nor in tomorrow’s schoolbook promise. We must look lightly into scary darkness, sense the moist breath of foreign artists there. See first for ourselves, then others shall be included surely.

They speak in unknown colors, curved sounds and barely ascending fragrances. Listen with your secret ears.  Skin can sense the touch of invisibilities before summer’s tallest corn is tasted by hillside’s unshorn sheep who linger on and on past the softest dusk.

Can you allow the world to languish, to linger in such perfect slowness? Perhaps not knowing is the clearest path to understanding….’Perhaps’ may be the finest word. Perhaps.

'blue blew in on a lazy grey day'

'When She Shuffles'

When she shuffles into

your church, your bar,

 

your school or café

today with unkempt

 

greasy hair and 

ancient smells

so stiff and thick

 

they shock and sting 

your offended

upturned nose --

 

Will you gaze into her

crusted eyes and see

 

yourself reflected there

hungry and all alone,

 

or will you thank your

stars above or your

special pseudo-god

 

for your job, your car

and healthy kids,

 

your successful friends

and well-stocked,

heated home,

 

as you falsely

buy what you

tell yourself

 

that it's ok

to turn

away?

"LIFE, DOWN UNDER"

"THE GYPSY AND IRISH RAIN"

walking near home....I am lucky enough to walk only minutes to be in this silent, windswept, solace of nature

"la gitana, la virgen, la musica!"

' THE HAPPY TRUCKER AND HIS PH-PHACTOR'

" the perhaps of it all "

for years, I've loved

the word 'perhaps',

 

seemingly for the way

 

it simply sounds

plopping

 

from the plump

 

of my soft

and eager

tongue

 

slipping

through my

lively lips

 

into this blessed

tragic world of

 

now or never

contingency.

 

Will the creeping snail

cross the broad and

dangerous sidewalk

 

or be crushed flat

and slimey

 

under a well-worn

boot of the hurried

gardener

 

worried in the flurry

of work, 

 

perhaps today

he'll make

 

the funds 

to feed

 

his brown skinned

hungry family?

" THE EMBATTLED DRONE PILOT EXPERIENCES THE INEXORABLY TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF MUSIC UPON HEARING 'US AND THEM' BY PINK FLOYD AND QUITS HIS JOB AT ONCE" original painting--48'x60' acrylic and pencil on canvas

'A GEOGRAPHY OF HOPE' original painting-48"x60" acrylic and charcoal on canvas

Heidi in Kauai Following Her First Year of Leukemia Treatments---She Embodies A Geography of Hope

hidden gardens of Baja

'THE INEXORABLE REMOTENESS OF THE DRONE PILOT' ( 48 x 60" acrylic on canvas)

prayer poem

May you rest easy in 

afternoon's hammock

 

woven from the care

and kindness

of friends

 

and always awaken

replenished

 

while a cool 

breeze kisses 

 

and caresses 

your skin.

 

May the generous

hummingbird fly

 

from flower to flower

in your green garden,

 

each sweet second

another surprise

 

for bright eyes

now ready

to see

 

great silver light

shimmering

 

all ways thru

 

and out of

the darkness.

Morning coffee on
this silent couch,

while bougainvillea
flames forth

between

July's bold
fiery life

and January's
bare twigs

of death.

"A STAR IS TORN"

"CITY SIDEWALKS"

"COLOURPLAY" (top image is abstract photograph of detail of the lower image which is painting--18 x 24" oil and acrylic on board)

"sweet and sour"

"WHEN DURANTE EMBRACED COLOR"

"HITCHCOCK'S BOYHOOD"

running for air, he sped lean on thick lawns of moss

and clover, felt green streaks of quiet amidst Catholic

terror and panic, constantly looked over his shoulder

for what he wasn’t certain but nonetheless the shadowy

gent behind the shower curtain pierced his mind with shards

of red rain and black vertiginous thought, blocked hard his

deep needed rest and thus blessed the tormented fat boy

with swirling unbidden currents of paranoid story and

crimson iron saturated droplets of grand murderous glories.

"he was always horny so i gave him a piece of my mind"

"UNTITLED X 3"

"A CHANT TO LEAP BY"

Real faith

 

is

allowing

ourselves

to know,

in our

deep

bones,

that through

unseen space,

we are

forever

free-falling.

"How Do You Sleep?"

how do you sleep
when dreams lurk

and pant on the edge
of blurred senses

like the cougar half-
hidden on the gray
boulder up there

(or the hawk aloft,
that scoundrel
cloud-kisser)

where only wind
and rattlers find
their strange

defenseless
belonging?

"surprise in the park"

"RIVEN by RIVER"

the River expands
with a raging
vengeance,

a gray liquid
animal he
threatens

our front door and
soon shall destroy
the house:

we scurry in panic,
search for sheets
and blankets

to plug the cracks
and keep us safe
and dry.

Suddenly somehow
River shrinks

to its usual
tranquil flow,
its normal self,

one hundred feet
below our empty

street, and we are
stunned yet safe
again, but who

on earth can
tell us how,

or when menace
may rise from
beauty once
again?

"EGYPT IN CHAOS"

"MOMENT-US"

"untitled"

"WHEN YOUR BLUES BEGAN"

When your blues began
To melt in that precious

Light there was a scent
Of  fresh roses in
The darkened room

And I heard

The softest

“alleluia”

Like a hidden waterfall
Splashing on moss-
Soaked rocks,

It Soothed
your aching
Heart.

Oh, this unseen woman’s
Hushed, and silvery

singing echoes

Through azure
Oceans of
Pure feeling.

"TRIO"