16/100

a murder of crows

gathering bigger and gnarlier birds

One at a time

Taking no cover in a parking lot

Capturing the last glimpse of the day

before the storm rolls through

it is the last drops of water that fall from a broken tap

in the hardpan Tucson earth

sunburned flesh begins to perspire

in a day that never seems to end

vultures gyre silently through the air

like some awkward metaphor

that never seems to hit is mark  

15/100

Through the dark LA streets

The rain pooling in the gutters
the slosh of the passing cars

The storm falling back like a coward against the onslaught of the terrain

Out of an art show of spraycans

I jump out into the street

And catch Spout as she leaps over the water filled fissures

“Hold’on to her!” He says. A homeless man in the passing direction,

passing on in the opposite direction

We are just the flak in what must be his crack-laden mind

“Hold’on t’her.” He echoes aloud behind us

Like some midnight sermon to nobody

And were gone like the fading sirens

Were gone like wildfires that burn the Hollywood hills to ash,

We are fucking gone.

I think back to this second often

Late nights where I wake up just before blue hour

Wondering what dreams come

Or if I’m simply sleepwalking

And dreaming of the times where I was last asleep

Thinking on to the nature of letting go. 

color chain

With each stroke, I undo

bringing the work closer and closer to completion

Eventually unravel this spell

Yearning for letters and words that never come

The truth rings through the cracks

I mean nothing to you.

I mean nothing to anyone

And I’ve painted this succession so many times before,

unraveled so many others

casting them into the mausoleum where they exist forever 

and yet, yours remains so complex

so, complicated

so twisted it takes everything I have to remember where I am

but the truth rings through the cracks;

I am alone

And each time I spill these colors

Each passing year that slips away

I undo the spells that have held me, find new ones, and undo those

For the first time I grow tired of who I am

I’m sick of what I’ve become

Agnostic to finishing

the paintings that will evacuate your smell from memory

within each ending the inauguration of the same emotions arises

cowardice keeps me from pushing on