Memory

Very little fades away from me,

Love, details, people,

They are like photographic

Memories.

I remember the feelings I had

From times I rode a tricycle,

The Aurora in the sky at four o’clock,

The black cocker spaniel next door,

Who drank beer.

Your face.

All of my life is like a movie

Ready to be played back

At any moment

What others forget, fading as

Unimportant,

I remember like observations

Under a microscope,

With feeling.

Odilon Redon

The vague transitions of color

Your crisp edge, then disappeared -

Into pinks and oranges, fogged.

The outline of blue’s flowers -

Trace around the painting’s edge.

Love’s arms protect and warm,

Imagination.

Your use of the patterns like

A beautiful thought of all nature’s

textures, a combined effusion.

The overt standing of the sturdy,

White vase, it’s offering:

The magic of color arranged.

A color poem for the eye.

White Vase With Flowers, 1916

Vacuum

You sucked the life out of me,

I let you.

The wind came in and took everything

I ever thought would never change.

And it didn’t change like I thought,

The action just left a shell,

Emptied like a clear glass vase

Standing like a vertical, crystal vapor,

Knowing there was work ahead.

Shasta Moonbeam Queen

That is what we called her,

White with rusty spots.

An English setter, so smart and beautiful,

From a litter of eleven.

All at once I encountered them -

While picking out a puppy.

The owner had emphysema;

And said I can let them out - but I can’t pick them up.

(For obvious reasons)

They ran everywhere, noses to the ground.

I chased one into the barn and picked her up.

She was shy and warm, she was the one.

She hid under the seat of the van

All the way home.

When I got to the house, I took her out and

Put her right to the side of the studio door for her

To walk in and surprise you, but she was too shocked

So I gave her a tiny push, and she appeared to you -

Like a little, white spotted cloud.

Love at first sight.

Floating

He strapped the blue balloon

To his shirt through a button hole,

Put on his mask, and slashed

The rope to the heavy anchor.

He floated up and over for days,

Viewing the world as design,

Colors, shapes and weather,

Before he reluctantly, sadly

Without incident, floated down,

Leaf-silent to the waiting earth.