artisan's poem

i write now
after hands have laid dormant for so long
to preserve in time words that I can hardly make out
though i wear glasses they have not fogged up
though i am driving through the rain I have my wipers on
i can hardly make out these words
and it is even harder to hear them
whispered along melodious echoes
brushing past my ears on their way to my brain
they do not stop to thud hollowly on my drums of sound
but bypass the gate
only to have the sentinels chasing after
i am preserving so that this time does not pass me by
as easily as the last ones did
and in the hopes that I can hold on
longer than I am supposed to
a feat no one has accomplished to date
but still i’m wont to try
i find that late night ramblings are most fruitful
so i sit in bed staring through the darkness
past my lit computer screen
searching for answers to the questions
that plague this tired mind
who sends out a yawn
only to be stifled
as it has been stifling the words i am writing now
after letting my hands lie dormant for so long

i sing now
out of mouth and mind and memory
come pouring songs of relative experience
melodies that float with echoes to now provide
a soundtrack for this new poem
that fairly flows from my once frigid fingertips
thank god for alliteration
and settles on my tongue for to provide my vocal chords
with something to do
besides talk and talk and talk
chattering my way past nonexistence into immortality
and now i live on Olympus
my breath getting thin
my songs drifting thinly
through air not so thick anymore
the elevation robs me of life and i sit listlessly
only able to keep fingers clicking on keys
tapping out this tale of poetry turned tune
tune flipped into poetry again
for always there is music to go along with my life
background to the mind and memory
now falling from my mouth

i paint now
with words i throw color on canvas
to make pictures of a life now thought to be worth living
tremulously holding a brush in fingers
stained with figurative ink and bleeding from calluses
formed when i hold too tight onto a fantasy
i am loathe to leave behind
to surrender to a reality more desirable
yes but frightening
it scared me out of my artist’s apron for a while
but now these strings are tied too tight
robbing me of breath
as i sit here in thin air tainted with paint thinner
that once diluted my words to an extent where you could not
see them anymore
the colors were pastel and spread transparently
across these cloth covered boards
hardly to be seen
and that i think was my purpose
to be seen hardly
sharp edges like Picasso cubism
like the opposite of Van Gough
but clear slightly tinted glasses
not rose but blue to see the world through
and through which for the world to see me
a melancholy harshly cornered painting
flat on this canvas
i am flat on this canvas
my colors thrown every which way
now abstract the meaning only clear to me

i write now
listening to music that is poetry in music note form
staring at a painting not literal
but life-shaped and definitely not static
ever changing materials building on top of one another
pigment growing brighter by the minute
i will be blinded after a while
but until then i will start again to write
put down on electronic paper
with presupposed ink
words that not only illustrate but sing into existence
that which i wish to have
words that try to banish late night early morning
love affairs with old stories of life with disease
self-victimized and dying slowly
that try to remind that i have been defibrillated
shocked back into the knowledge of my lack of mortality
relative lack figurative lack
a lack that cannot be seen but like ideas can be put
into words and tunes and pictures
creating an art form never before read
or heard or seen
never done before
and i’m starting to write it all down again
here i start

i write now
i sing now
i paint now
i live now
now
i live