FLYING COLOURS

every day she stood in her coloured studio
looking at  the colors coming down
and the plane she couldn't reach
leaving it with the presence of absence

with despair in every unused color
green fading to green then green
black to black then black
and the plane waiting for Van Gogh yellow

seeing the dreams she wanted to paint
she plucked the colors from the air
with the shadows on their enigma
falling to the blue painters flesh

slowly twirling to the eternal cracks and space
towards some slow chamber below
her skin feeling the sensations of  falling pigment
flying to a new colour field

CITY LIGHTS

on a hot summer night in North Beach
where street cars dance with gypsies
to the beat of jazz notes blown
with Kerouac and other misfits
dreaming towards another stream of consciousness
baked on heat and apple pie
approaching poems with reckless abandon
reading hot salvages with blemished eyes
puzzled by the shadows of the dancers
and their confident movements of nothingness
with relentless expressions of beauty
wondering what dream brought me to this place
beat poets at City Lights

MANTEL CLOCK

on the mantelpiece counting down the minutes
before another death
ticking on its face of denial
entrapped within its antiqued mind
unable to turn a blind eye
to the shadows of the big room
while the seconds tick away
it grinds away in deadly charm
remembering the momentous death
of the aloof spinster
and the detached life she lived
while watching the handsome dogs
eat the dead parrot
in silence

the ticking stops

GARDEN SCULPTURE

below our welcoming garden
it sits
on a chunk of bleached wood
silent

once it was a root
under soil and moss
fertilizing obsessions of the tree
leaving the limbs high in the sky
for the hungry vultures
waiting for the dead body
and another burial

summer fires had run through its veins
autumn hurled oak burrs
winter icicles fell from above
spring opened up its breath

after the dark storm had roared
I carried it home
dripping with sweat
and ancient drops of light
it was more than a chunk of wood

at home I sat it down
I spoke
it listened
I carved and sanded
it remained silent
alert

lines started to form
around sand-flecked hollows
I sanded
I carved
it smiled
forming into a spirit head
coming back to where it once was

below our welcoming garden
it sits silent
a spirit head

       
                                                                      BLIND DOG

I bought a porcelain dog
at a second hand store
Blind Willie  stands and stares at me
with perpendicular eyes

he needs food
and a water bowl
I need  love
and his bark

we stand frustrated

EIGHT BAR STOOLS

almost every night at ten
they held court at the Cedar Street Tavern
a landscape of rebel poets and painters
defying rules that might be formalized
talking jazz and baseball
guzzling eight oz jugs of beer
drunk

Kerouac was always at stool one
trying to find the next word
another ashtray to piss in
and the road ahead
never sorry

Pollack would sit next to him
dripping paint dropping spills
before kicking in the men's room door
pissing on the unstreched canvas
never missing

Corso sat at stool three
knowing he had been saved
after kicking in cafe window
finding words in prison
never graduating

de Kooning sits at stool four
feeling the desperation in himself
trembling on the bar stool
throwing his melodrama of paint
before falling

Creely sits between the two painters
sitting so patiently
no knowing who he is
presuming he is a poet
never regrettable

Rothko sits in stool six
never being moved by colors
searching for their emotions
and expressing his non-self
always intimate

O'Hara sits on the next stool
waiting for his next catastrophe
eyes vague looking away
being sick to his stomach
too much vodka

Kline always sits at stool eight
looking familiar in his blueness
with images of his emotions
painting in black and white
eight bar stools

POET'S EPITAPH

words of the soul
slowly running thru
the worst and best of me
forever
like my blood
the creek flows
with fear
unafraid of critics
to the forgiving ocean