in barked silence -
and camphor to keep the flies at distance,
the anchored boat like a prison ship
dallying on the waves,
brambles & underbrush
sunken wet sand,
abundant berries rasp in thickets -
the cottage like a jar
closing for the night.
57

***************************************************************

BRUSHSTROKE

On rue Vincingetorix,
a Paris hovel
in a garret of cold -
Gauguin enchanted
serpentine colours, the medium of
a brushstroke from
a paltry primitivism.

Rue Vincingetorix,
cloudy haze
sun as billowing plaster,
neatly laps
scrapes clean
the bereavement
of a man's pain.
58

***************************************************************

MAN

In the old air
by his rocker,
a silent trapeze of thought
suspends an aging man.

Each movement as of the katydid
droning -
a monologue with the past;
a buzz escaping across
still, warm air.
Elsewhere, cicadas whittle about the octogenarian heat.

Nestled quietly, a supine stare erodes both time & place
unto bearded grey -
nuances clasped
in a breathless chat with death.
59

***************************************************************

LANDING SCHEMES

Omens are the cloth of dreams
scissors used to open sky -
the future riding birds
en route to ariel docking piles.

Leonardo was of the opinion creativity might be
enhanced a notch should aspiring artists nota bene
principalities, bile, their rhumes as tiles
then perceive them piecemeal as stratagem, not snuff or
random blotch, the heads of diseased pigs
but conjuror-sextants toward the stars.
60

***************************************************************

MIRAGE

The intense focus of light
but pointillism,
into this juncture bits of light
surround rough, inverted sky -
dawn is their message
unfurled about
the alumni apparatus
of incensed eyes
and whispered sun.

The heavy mirage of dots,
landscape locked
Seurat, a frieze of summer heat
choking water lilies -
the sun as a crystal ship
adrift across
bedlam-sponsored
random dots.
61

***************************************************************

STONE GUIDE

She was fading -
into the stone
into rifled shadows heavy
with fallen light,
rippled boughs
of splitting fruit &
droopy leaves
to a sallow body under clumsy years