I'm in Love (Through rose-colored Glasses)

 

Through rose-colored Glasses 68 x 42 - mixed media on canvas

 

 

I’M IN LOVE

 

with the portrait of a certain poet

composing a few wet verses

in her bath. Little kid’s in love

with the ball he’s kicking around, would

fight to the death for it. I know someone

in love with the youngish Iggy Pop, his hebre-

phenic squalor, his flexible graceful damaged  

body diving into an audience. But it’s Iggy’s need   

to be loved that he really loves. A certain poet   

loves Black Sabbath channeled through Wolf Alice

on Giant Peach, the live version, and I love

Italian cities in the first chill of morning, smelling

of espresso mixed with chocolate, brioche crumbling

through my fingers while I stand watching workers  

reading pink colored sports pages, nervous, twitching,  

longing for a smoke, and who look up whenever an elegant  

woman walks by, which is often, and I love that the men know  

instinctively when to raise their eyes. I love it that 

my wife stands on her toes whenever she’s ecstatic. 

 

 

Thirty is the new Fifteen

 

Primavera 40 x 40 x 9 cm - mixed media on wood

 

THIRTY IS THE NEW FIFTEEN

 

She has a crush on her yoga instructor.

Would like to keep an Australian boy

in her basement, tethered to a chaise longue.

Let him out to play cricket every now and then.

You throw glances she doesn’t throw back.

That you send her doughnuts, anonymously,

though she seems to abhor food of any sort,

is quiet lunacy. No one knows she sometimes visits

a toilet stall and touches herself there, smothering a scream.

Not so absurdly, she is an avid watcher of “Emily in Paris.”   

She once helped you translate spreadsheets into PowerPoint.

There are words in the air, modules of advice. Be yourself.  

Be anything but. It’s dog eat dog, it’s make ends meet, it’s ends

justify means: why would she tether you to a chaise longue?

Exchange your skateboard and wayward baseball cap

for khakis, a golf shirt, a pair of boat shoes. Here, take these; you’ll be fine. 

 

 

Mizumi

 

Mizumi 17,5 x 12,5 cm Monoprint on paper

 

 

 

 

TALKING ABOUT THE WEATHER

 

Wind, rain and hail coming all at once

making a mess of everything that

grows here. There’s some serious flooding

so we should be talking about the weather.

But I commune with Radiohead instead

and there’s no one around to say I shouldn’t.

We can label this the upside of solitude.

The downside being I’m the only person left I

can fight. Seen from any angle this is not a win-win.

Inventory includes a blood-pressure cuff and a

new pair of shoes as stiff as a neighbor’s smile.

Some European food porn. A few dozen tattered Penguins.

If dignity is a jewel of life that must be earned

then I am sure I left mine at a pawn shop—possibly El Paso,

maybe Bakersfield. Plus I have no idea what I did

with the money I got for it except that I ended

up in a place where a good breakfast is

suspiciously cheap. There may have been a girl

on roller skates doing tricky turns in a parking lot. Everyone has  

to feel lucky once or twice in a lifetime. Everyone has to feel

that the worst thing that can happen is a bad  

interpretation of the facts on the ground—which I think

was Tahoe. When the roller-skate queen in pink knee-pads face plants

I help her up, wipe off the blood with an old tea towel,

talk a little about the heat, then offer to buy her a 99 cent breakfast. 

 

 

Pride and Prejudice

 

How I spent my Afternoon 40x40x2 cm collage, mixed media on canvas

 

 

CONFESSIONS OF A MOONY

 

If you’ve ever just come to,

the moon shining

in your eyes, most likely 

a Saturday night

to Sunday morning—

substances

running riot down the length of your body—   

you’re not alone my brothers and sisters.

She wakes me up all the time.

 

Every insomniac’s 

preferred metaphor

is an interrogator’s

lamplight in my eyes

as I admit every   

foul act ever committed   

throughout a douchebaggy

botched & bungled

life, and still she won’t let me sleep.

 

She’s somewhat blurred, behind a thin membrane

of mist, like a cookie—or shortbread, just dunked

in coffee or tea—or like a girl who, knowing she’s

gorgeous, insists on your attention—

a smirking delicious cock teasing moon.