We started with four

Watercolor and ink on paper, 4 1/2 x 9 inch

The only words left

Too late for your birthday

I semi-remembered your June 28th

I knew it last week

But today (now yesterday) was fresh and naive

She only saw now and not then

I got the call early, from my partner in crime

From the one who knows too

He told me, both as if for the first time and

As if it were already stated aloud

I said I would call back, do something

But it all dissolved away

I only saw today, I lived it with no past

As if loss were lost long ago

The evening was special and alive, vivant

But my artwork tells the story

It was crumbling, melting, coming down in pieces

You were there slipping away

I am sorry I am too late for your birthday.

You would be 59 today (yesterday).

The 8th birthday not celebrated with you.

It is too late for your birthday.

Too late for goodbye, too late for I'm sorry.

But never too late to tell you I love you.

I love you.

Points of connection

Watercolor on paper, 9 x 6 inch

Let it fall away

Watercolor and ink on paper, 12 x 9 inch

If your (my) word is all you (I) have

Skinned

I want to write 'what if'

I want to splay my fears and hesitations full out

Open-legged, exposed, indulging in calculations

Of all the uncertainties and fuckups on balance

Teetering, tempting me to sink into their comfort

The solace of a path well-worn, familiar, close-fitting

I want to prepare myself for the worst

I want to let the possibilities of disaster be known, in case

Slip on the cloak, half-disappear, safer now, shielded

Saturated down, translucent so it can't stick

You can't hold me down, fight me, break me, leave me

Yanked from my pedestal of knowing what I know

But I will not settle down again

Blocked into a place of reason, reassurance, gripping

I do not want the confines up, censures gauged

I want to take off my tie, my noose, my corset

Keeping these words in, but letting the rest out, breathe out

Knowing opening up to not knowing, a permeated flow

I'm peeling, pink and sensitive and fresh

I don't know more than ever, with new eyes blinking

Ha I laugh at the unlearnable learned somehow unthinkable

Held onto all the thorns letting the blood out beautiful red

Melancholy and it's brutal romance slip down into black lace

My nakedness is loud, shaking with thrill, now facing forward.

Seeing through new eyes

Roses by George Eliot

You love the roses - so do I. I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!

Two Years Together Today

Mathieu

to my love, cheri

two years under one promise

one moment of more

I felt you, I know it

Shifting color

This soft green, chalky glow is fading into yellow haze.

It crinkles at the edges, aged.

Moments of shock and thrust and rushes of heat

Must give way to settling and integration.

Shifting in form following momentary obliteration.

You are new, within the same silhouette.

I must give myself inner shape, refocus my self, my lens.

Two twisted eyes bringing it all into view.

A lemony aura warms my body, sinking in like a desert tan.

Indescribable, prickling my skin, testing me.

Don't threaten me, don't worry, don't panic; I felt the click.

Remind me you're here but know you were taken in.

Caresses of infiniteness and space cushion and comfort,

I am nothing and everything.

Wonder-ful and awe-ful. Black velvet blanketing the future open.