New Work

Long Winded

I am trying not to drink

It is an unlearning 

a rewound storytelling

Which could take a long while 

as I come from a long line

of longwinded storytellers

preachers

teachers

music-making creatures

And

Or

Alcoholics 
Addicts

Pick your poison

or concoct a cocktail

Not that the two have to go hand in hand

but a drink in hand 

often means a story is on its way 

And God forbid you are empty handed 

for your stories may be presumed empty

stirring off handed comments

handed to you

by the slurred forked tongues

of two fisted drinkers

served from their personal

in home

basement bar

of self judgement

Spirits are so entrenched

into the social structure of my culture 

that even the sober can become addicted

to the social pressures applied

by the shame of the afflicted

How early must a child drink

to make their parent feel less

restricted

conflicted

dismissed

Strip away that history

and I have no family

But at least I have no family to shame it on

Strip away peer pressure

and I have no friends

But at least I have no friends to blame it on

Strip away a lover 

and I have no other 

to frame it on

No leaning 

No naming

No projecting

or defending 

Only enduring 

the voice in my head

that is remaining 

My own story

My own complaining

The energy I spend gas-lighting myself

results in my own unfriending

Locomotivation in reverse

Morale draining

Light heart straining

Making my brain filter all the stories I have left

leaving a distillation

a concentration

an intoxicating libation

of the angry and perverse

If this is not the birthplace

then it is the nursery

the playground

the classroom

the pulpit

the university

the stage

the fraternity

the PhD

of passive aggressivity

Sarcastic mystery

Self depreciating wit

dishonest proclivity

and elevated lubricating tendency

Virtues that make up

quite a ruthless personality

But qualities that do tell

one hell of a good story

Inscape

I am a portrait artist

I used to say
I hated painting landscapes

It felt redundant

Boring

All that foliage

So much green

It seems like

so many landscapes have already been done

The only place in the scene 
that fascinated me

was the horizon

Maybe because it led me to the sky

Which I would like to think

I could look at for hours

Day or night

Feels like an out of body experience

Like if you look up far enough

you lose the land

and all sense of where you stand

The place you inhabit

The problems that surround you

The tasks at hand

Like if you look up far enough

you can lose yourself

Just fall right up into the open space

So I painted a few skyscapes

Transforming clouds floating

over ombres of hue

They felt like escape

I am still a portrait artist

But I see so much more

than I did before

The planes of a face

look just like a landscape

Rolling hills of cheekbones

Peeks of eyebrow ridges

Everyones eyes are a magnificent skyscape

transforming clouds floating

over ombres of hue

Some irises wake you

with the green of the sun

hitting spring grass in the morning

Some are elusive and patient

like silvery fog that snakes

after the rain

over steely glass water

There is electric midday blue

that shocks you
like lightening in your veins

There is deep midnight black

where you cant find your way in

or back out again

And some escape the day

through soft brown warmth blanketing your tired mind

orange and gold undertones

Burning wisps 

slipping below the horizon line

I am a portrait artist

Who is still learning

Who begins again

Everyday

For every day we change

Do we ever really know what another looks like

To find a likeness

is to care fully look

is to care for someone

I must learn how to care

It is a practice

I look at the outside

to find my way in

What stories rise to the surface

and hold up our skin

What storms

What carnival rides

What calm

What peace

What vast expanses of indigo

What jostling terrain of vertigo

What restless desire for escape

A portrait is just an internal landscape

An inscape

And inscapes

are anything

but boring