Going Home

He smelled the wet canvas, fresh,
recently finished after a lifetime of work.
He gazed at the picture and words,
swirling in a maelstrom of activity,
blending, blurring speaking clearly from a distance,
shouting in his ear.
The painting stood, head height,
two arms wide,
a cacauphony of color no one could understand.
His left hand held the last brush,
his right locked firmly on the grainy wood behind.

It was purposeful then,
when he tipped a pint of thinner over the top,
and watched it streak muddiness down the length,
like a rejected lover walking down a midnight lit street.

It was purposeful then,
when he punched a hole in the corner,
and cracked the frames' spine over his knee,
a lifetime of work, a masterpiece
smeared on the dark hue of his denim.

His feeling of failure,
at destroying the picture
at letting down the craft,
knew no bounds.

The joyous laughter of the paints,
colors, brushes calling him back,
calling him for another go,
were subdued now,
watching sadly as he slumped down the wall,
a rolled clump of canvas clenched furiously in his fist.

Spectrum of Words (Poem)

The place before me, windy with an angled sunset,
bright and hard light-streaks like glittering gems,
curled over a mountain broken into red and brown facets.

The flower waved and swayed,
smiling at a marine-emerald day,
alone and larger than the sky, dancing a fuchsia vision

I saw it in a valley where thoughts took shape,
jutting straight from a sea of green,
cutting deep where horizon met land,
a valley where thoughts danced and disappeared.

It took only moments to descend into its beauty,
where a spectrum of words wrapped themselves into stories around me.

Geometric (Sharpie Sketch)

An Eddy of Scorn (poem)

A girl, stranger to frienship,
sits still next to a small bend in a river,
surrounded by a dusty-brown olive orchard,
their fruit staining the air with a tang.

A girl, stranger to the sky,
sits still remembering everything she has lost,
surrounded by a small cake-layer of mud,
seeping into her ziz-zag patterned dress.

A girl, friend to a mirrored world,
peers down into a silver eddy,
collecting and reversing its flow,
whispering, rippling and crinkling its liquid laughter.

A river, ceaseless,
stares back at her,
and flashes images of a silvery world,
a world which lures her, and shows her lost memories.

An uneven sunset,
stealing silver and scorn from the river,
changes the pictures she stares at,
and blocks her slow fall into a torn imagination.

The Light in the End (Poem)

His scraped knees and gangly legs hung over the edge,
heels knocking against chipped stone,
laces double-tied in two careful loops.

The hole spanned two meters,
deep as an endless eye's pupil,
no iris, no lashes, no brows,
cruelly confident where the boy had none.

In his hands he held a ball of light,
shimmering, swimming, sifting illumination from dark,
swirling in the reflections of his deadened eyes,
this ball hung suspended between palms.

At moments it weighed as worlds would,
at others feathers and hope in limbo,
and still others it would spin confusing contours,
dragging the boy's glance downwards.

Within lay memories and musings,
insults and inebriations,
failures and the strands of gossamer separating them from happiness,
strands thrumming in the silence.

It murmured nervously as the boy's face shifted towards nothing,
arms outstretched,
extending the slim arc of bouncing light closer to the middle,
throwing his face into inkier depths.

Hopes never make a sound as they fall,
and the boy cocked his head to the side,
as the orb slipped its hold
and quickly dragged its light down into the darkness,
clicking the shutter shut in his mind.

Elephant Friend, Thailand (Photo)

No Greater Freedom (Sketch)