Lets all work together

Learning to Shout

My Contemporaries

Grail

Nude

Fictions of the Person

Passe En

Twins

My Morning Walk

Faux Pas

Stove

Dan

Monica

Party

Pears Posing

Testament to a Mark

Errors of Beauty

I had simply stopped looking

Tired of straining my neck, to catch

What it was blowing around in those trees

Tip, tipping over, till I lied on my back

Dog tired.

There was a catch though!

When there was a catch, thousands of pounds

Of golden gleaming, fishy, flesh, flopping

All in my arms, for me

Sweet mouthfuls, Dream feast, leaving me

Voiceless, Smacking my lips

“No more of that” I thought.

Too raw to cook, to salty for the sea

Not for me, Intangible

Left me sick and sorry for a whole minute!

Vomiting for a year!

I went to the doctors all right!

She had never seen anything like it

“Plenty of rest I suggest”

Giving me capsules of sleep

And a dead bird, as is tradition

Light as air, still twitching

As any good patient, I tossed

My medicine right out the window

Keeping the corpse for keepsake

And went straight to pacing, barefooted

Till I bled, in and in

The hall of the dead

Every night, all twenty-four hours, I kept this up

My watch, turned in for a spear,

Setting myself, As some statue

Cold and perfect – Aside

The queens open grave- Slave

 For the afterlife

I was never lonely though, not really - not really

Between the vice of the earth and the sky

Witness to Cleopatra’s phantom

Rising one year in every ten

Gasp, sigh, Mouth to mouth,

Ash and Formaldehyde

Her breath my breath, leaving me alive

Appreciator of gorgon songs

Hands on hips, cemented

Now so sordidly solid stone

That classic marble white, pleasant and opaque

Ears of rock only phantom words could pass through

To find a heart that sung its song

A sight for stone eyes! A visitor!

Forms that made me proud and wanting

Hercules and Persephone in Hades

Stone to flesh, transmuted

Clumsy faun’s legs

I ran with them, then flew

Without looking…

For the first time, I rose with the rose

Was blue with the blue – Swimming with the swell assailing the reef!

What relief, breathing water!

Not till, sowing the earth

I realized, I still held the long foul fowl

And dropped the thing altogether

Just like “that”, Immediately

The thing sprouted, Maggots into roots

Then leaves, shoots, branches from the bones - Already

With a trunk as thick as me

A plum tree- expediently

Half budding, half bearing fruit

A violent violet, which I took – enough

For Hercules, Persephone and I

Which we two, bit into, then fell asleep forever

When I woke the next day

There was nothing but wheat about me

Celebrating the sun and the wind that set it shimmering

Like the clear surface of a lake

Reflecting from zenith to nadir

Everything above it, again and again

A thousand times for every ten

I was sure of it now – Me!

King for Queen Persephone!

Blood boiling, steaming off in shouts

“Arrow for an archer! Mark for a marksman”!

I came bolting! ... but she had vanished

Nowhere to be found - without a sound

Landing in the dirt

Disbelief – even as I wiped away

The clay, caking to my face – hands and knees

Deep in it, Red and damp

Clinging to my skin – to my regret

Earth without fire

Stuck in the mud –I looked

All over, when out from my head sprung, singing

Cleopatra’s, decadent cadaver

Having grown deaf, I had to

Shout as I pulled myself from the mire

“I am not afraid of the deep, nor the rivers end!”

This killed her – and she laughed

As I sailed down where I desired

When I was paying attention again

I heard the faintest voice in the world

Croaking, “Friend, friend, friend”

Astride a open grave - speechless

A feeble old man sat, pointing, to the end

The tombstone read aloud

“Hercules”

Mockery!

Too much! When his eyes spilled out like water

Melting to a puddle at those feet - incomplete

Torn and blistered, revealing the grain of wood

Grasping after me with a hundred set of hands

Facing a lion’s mane then a cobra’s hood

Imposter!

I nearly choked! So I strangled

Laid, and buried him in the grave

I was sad, sitting on the curb of Night’s town

Unable to bow or wow as I wished, at the flocks

Of grey pleated skirts with high socks

 Flowing, floating on the smoke of cigarettes

No regrets, atop parapets, its laughable and laughing

Spirited by the hot wind of their lovers

“Quelli che amo, io amo sempre”

Going, going, gone.

Tapping tabletops, till a tapping called me on and on and after.

I stepped on creaking steps

To the marching drums of windows rapping

 Home -Two stories shaking

Animals going in, Animals coming out

Eyes within, I without

My feet the followers of feet

Members of a length of lonely coattails

All the endless procession of hanging tongues

Filing forwards, on the flat earth flattened by our feet

Until we meet with darkness and shuffle to our seats

An audience of dark eyes murmurs

Unwrapping dusty pockets melted sweets

A roar of rustling in a dim retreat

Who am I? Should it matter?

I also wear my coat to keep me warm! Wearing away the wares I handle!

Measuring my thumb against the moon! I balance eggs on dollar spoons!

The theaters velvet cushions likewise take my ass’s form

There is silence as clamor turns to clapping- Signaled

By the curves of curtain unpeeled

Ribbons of red, gives way to inarticulate floor, on which

A painted face presents herself

Dress of undress, thighs and breasts

Penumbra darker than its shadow

She for me! Selected, participator in some pageantry.

I rise to meet her but would not could not dare complete her

She pulls my arm and peels back my skin

Wound wide enough to whisper in

And she does-

“You knew me, I am the sea dried up by the sun”

 Ill have none

“You’re a painting, poorly done. The case for a heart never won!”

She’ll take all

I in her hands so teeny, tiny, small

Faced with a face, mute and moving

I can only listen to their call

And to the delight of the cheering, jeering crowd

I lay her on the stage

Apparation in my bedroom

Possibility

Suitors

Apples

For Maria

Dancer

Musician

Passers on a path

A Jab at Myself

Blue Caban: Still Lifes

From Nov 12th-15th, a set of eight prints of my recent still life photographs will be displayed in the 1019A Gallery in the A+D building on the SUNY Purchase campus.
The opening reception will begin Saturday, Nov 12th, at 7pm.

Half of Half

Ambulations

Ambulations

Self

Ambulations

Triptych

Color Still Lifes

Color Still Lifes

Snapshots