Jack
Wake up Jack,
what you loved is dead.
There is no heat in her bed,
Her mouth is dry,
the teeth are wet,
there is nothing left
but regret.
Stand up
from your venal,
coffer'd, chair.
Attend to her
measured,
mortal, cares.
Step out of the madness
and purchase
her self-respect.
Lay out her corpse
to collect the tears,
and well wishes,
of her youth.
Receive the benediction
and cede the truth
to the troubadours
of her death.
Well Wishes of Her Youth
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
48" x 36"
sold
Breath
I have never sat with the dead,
but this can't be you.
The sleep that covers your bed
hasn't taken away your form.
The hands have not lost their touch,
and your face remains too familial.
Nothing has changed
but your breath.
Breathe.
I know your stock,
I know your frame
We share the same heart
same blood,
the same skin,
same bone.
Take on this world,
and live beside me.
The air is too heavy,
Don't leave me to breathe alone.
Breathe.
Open your eyes and breathe beside me.
Breathe, Before I am left to breathe alone.
Breathe!
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
34" x 34"
sold
In Berwyn The Rain Is Falling
​
In Berwyn
The rain is falling,
And she is dreaming
About feeling good again.
She is steeling herself
To soften under the
Heat of her own breath.
And the other,
She is moving closer,
Stepping in where
The cadence allows.
Stepping between
the warming shadows,
And the chilled stillness.
A shuffle brushing up
Against an unplanned melody
A Shuffle Brushing Up
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
10" x 34"
sold
Sunday, in August.
Mid-morning stretching into late.
The sun’s full expression is muted
behind a canopy of trees
on the eastern side of the yard.
The dog keeps guard,
along the fence line,
to protect against the incursion of squirrels.
Birds measure the distance
between me, the dog, and the seed,
and then quickly swoop in
to pull seeds from the feeder
before the calculation changes.
The hierarchy of birds
is uncertain to me.
It seems all defer to the finch,
except for the nuthatch,
who dispatches seeds from an axis
no one can defend.
The dark eyed junco
stays close to the ground,
confident that the dog
has cleared all cats,
and eats unchallenged
from the finch’s litter.
The chickadee,
more cautious waits,
until the feeder grows still,
and then carefully, tentatively,
takes one (but only one) seed
to the safety of the trees,
and from there waits
for the next interlude of stillness.
All Defer to the Finch
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
23" x 17"
sold
How do you dream of God?
How do you dream of God
falling forward at 1,000 miles per hour?
At 460 meters per second?
The speed of light is
299,792,458 meters per second,
over 650,000 times faster
than a dreaming man falls.
I have lived the distance
of nearly half a billion miles.
Every second falling forward
and slipping further back
at one 1300th of the speed of light.
Falling Forward at 1,000 MPH
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
34" x 34"
sold
Northbound Sounder
The world fills in,
occupying each vacant seat,
pushing out the silence from the cab.
Each body
introducing a variable of dissonance,
a pause in a story
that began hours before.
Stale smoke,
a cup of coffee,
or perhaps a breakfast condensed into a sandwich;
All the smells
of another life
overlaid onto a commute of strangers.
A leg crossed,
or a foot left resting in open space,
spells privacy.
A weak shelter
that only holds back the occupation
for a stop or two.
A Pause in a Story
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
10" x 10"
sold
If There Were Ghosts
If there were ghosts here,
I could sleep.
But the host lures every spirit into itself,
and elides my life from me.
Each specter pulled inside this body
tenders its toll.
Their lettings and leavings
ceding me no title;
only license to glean my birthright
from the edges of this table.
To have the fill of me
would permit me the grace to sleep
allowing those who loved
the quiet witness of five chairs
that could not hold this family together.
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
36" x 36"
click on image for details
To See Her as Beautiful
To see her as beautiful
You need to stand with her ashes
And look forward from their past
To breathe in her youth
Before the darkness stole the light from her eyes
And draped it darkly across her shoulders
You need to move from beside the track
And step between the rails
And hold your arms out to receive her
Even knowing she will be struck down
Struck down and wounded with every step
Knowing her body will be turned
Turned to salt
Turned toward bitterness
When I believed the world was magic
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
36" x 36"
Known Not Impossible
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
36" x 36"
click on image for details
Advent
You were waning
before your fullness ever was realized,
and you eclipsed into darkness
before I could fix my point along the meridian,
leaving only the declination of stars and planets
to set my truth against.
Here, in that orbit,
I have set my things in order,
covered my walls with meaning,
and lit certain candles to hold off the chaos
massing behind the light of the farthest stars.
For the Christ in me
was never a fixed light
but an airy transit,
waxing and waning across the evening sky.
The circuit of that orbit
broke and fractured at unset intervals
and darkened the circumference of certainty,
preparing the advent of a new declination.
I Wish that Remembrance
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
22" x 46"
Terce Hour
Before you knew to worry
you could lean into the curve of time
and let yourself tarry
as the sun warmed the room
and coaxed the covers
away from your shoulders
The clock’s hand
having neither rounded
the northern most point of time
nor set in to motion
east of the hour
held you quiet and unfixed
Between time
when the earth moved below you
and the sky slid above you
and you lay languid and still
sold
For Her Delight
Damaging the stem,
she plucked the bud,
and carried the flower,
amid other possessions,
In her pocket.
Carelessly,
she pressed the petals
into her palm,
to feel the coolness
against her flesh.
A soft yielding,
that would give up
its odor for her delight.
Staining her hands
with its fragrance.
Yielding,
press upon press,
until despoiled
of its beauty.
Time Ago and Now Again
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
36" x 22"
sold
Everyone in Heaven Thinks Somebody Else Should Do the Laundry
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
Triptych 23" x 17" each
Iona Fell Apart
Iona fell apart
and with it
a remembrance
of earth, sea and sky.
We came together
at the end of the world,
and then sojourned away
alone.
Out of Iona we carried
small marbled stones
polished smooth
in St. Columuba’s bay
We assembled alters,
both to remember,
and to vouch safe
our spirits.
But these sacraments
professed nothing
outside
the body.
And without
the mortar of martyrs
Iona fell apart
rolling away a handful of stones
as witness.
Always Unspoken
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
22" x 46"
Words clicking like ticker tape
Words clicking like ticker tape,
telegraphing likes and dislikes
on to the floor.
The self-market
always self-correcting
and trending into irrelevance.
The careful curation of
a public persona
indexed against the
securitized tranches
of monetized flesh.
At the close of yesterday’s bell,
what did you like?
Statistically speaking,
does anyone care?
He thinks of death mathematically
He thinks of death mathematically,
an outcome that is inevitable.
The truest nth value of any calculi,
a value that can never be subverted.
The axiom that each soul must resolve
to the same value in the last part.
A good life, a good death,
those are for the benefit of the living,
not for the benefit of the dead.
The dead are the most equal,
and that chafes against the skin of the living.
If there is divinity it is written out as comedy,
A worn and weathered script that suggests agency.
Each person using the same
plot lines, letters and numbers,
to differentiate a role
that leads to a common grave.
A proof whose outcome
is mathematically inevitable.
Alfred Has a Secret Life
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
34" x 34"
sold
Certainty Comes Easy
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
46" x 10"
click on image for details
The needle that threads our lives
The needle that threads our lives
was set against a cloth
that clothed the universe.
Suspended,
it was neither up nor down,
east nor west,
but always pulling us
to the right place,
at the right time.
Always pulling random threads
into self-determined patterns.
Narratives
that we affirmed
and easily discarded,
all depending on a given weave,
at a given moment,
in our given lives.
These self-testaments
made self-evident
without apparent edit or correction
were inked on our hearts,
wrapped around our wrists,
and tied at our waists.
A spiritual bondage
that unraveled
against the probabilities of time.
As Much as She Knows
She sits distracted,
poised purposefully
at the edge of her chair.
Her chair,
she says ruefully
and means it,
much as she means anything.
Her hands curve to grip its shape.
Its shape feels
like her chair when she says it.
And her words round her lips
in much the same way.
Not as I would say it
(especially its shape),
because its shape
is not my chair,
and she would say as much.
It is her chair,
and she knows it,
as much as she knows anything.
Sometimes the Shadows Hold the Meaning
Mixed Media on Wood Panel
34" x 34"
sold