The bees, the bees, the bees...

A painting still in process

Well, well, well, I'm doin well

fine just fine

Gravity, the bird god

Yesterday, I saw a bird fall.
I assume from the oak across the street,
because in the sky there is nothing to trip on but clouds,
he wouldn't get back up from that.
Who's to say he tripped though,
maybe he was pushed,
perhaps it wasn't his fault,
I can't imagine birds are that malicious though
so I doubt it.
But then again
I don't think they are clumsy enough either
It goes against nature,
what lives above shouldn't be careless enough
to fall down, but I saw it. A straight line
from up there
to down here.

The bird didn't fall like a leaf though,
or a feather for that matter,
it was a black blur succumbing
to forces beyond itself.
Perhaps it was pulled instead of pushed,
gravity finally winning the fight,
the one that bird had started,
The tempting, the mocking.

I heard it, squawking,
screaming. Not one long scream,
but it was more intermittent
like cries,
for help? Maybe.
From who?
Is there a bird god?
If anything it was gravity who made him
what he was in the first place.
Or maybe it was blind fear, because it knew
this shouldn't be happening.
It didn't know how to fall before.

And when it made impact with the ground
I could hear the compaction of hollow bones
into thick clay bricks.
And it lay, crying for a few moments
before bouncing back up,
like a racquet ball in slow motion,
flying into the air, finding another branch.
I wonder what he thought afterward.
I wonder if he did it to himself
just to see what he had been missing.
But I've been here awhile,
you're not missing much, bird.

Bouquet

The dogwood flowers here
remind me
of the dogwood flowers there:
home.
I'm not there (yet) they are here.
The memory separates me into many
and instead of multiplying I am divided,
the product of being + me.

I only see 1 + 1.
Yet the flowers realize t/(here) is (t/here).
But why say it as them instead of we?
Because the trunk of a tree divides
or does it multiply?
The good earth flowers people
I separate from my mother and I become
me just being, apart from.

I find that being, that me, is no longer mine,
when 1 x 1 exists and I only saw the product of two.
When the two intertwine, combine
and create ours.
I should live in both.
I only live in both
because that's the only thing,
Yet I feel I've got no thing,
And so does everything else.

It's spring now

It's spring now.
Wooden willow skeletons are covering their bare bones, revealing
their freshly sewn stoles, bearing
their intention to propagate and deceive, bees
hunt for buds and leaves made to steal the sun
from the lonely speckled flowers laying in wait below.

A breeze makes its way between
the purple parasols of forget-me-nots, tumbling
and shoving through the crowd
like a drunken ghost, with no one around
to listen to him he spots me, bumbling
like a bee, he makes his way over.

I watch the commotion,
a notion we used to see, and
get wind of a distant memory;
It was here he told us, “Ya'll make me so happy!”
And this ghost carries the message again
with both hands out, offering it
to be re-collected.
I had forgotten it here.

It was fall then, gestation
was just beginning for us, we smoked
with the man made happy, stumbled
past students while the flower audience endured
underground, waiting for a later date to rear,
the wind weaving between us, stitches
in my stomach as we are made to laugh, happily
I remember this.
How could I forget?

“Ya'll gonna get married?” A shared glance, we shot
a smile and a shrug back, we,
the youngest things here,
with less experience than the dirt, trees
still groan from the stress of growth,
even the cement cracks from being too certain.
Who knows? He acts like he does,
“Ya'll make me so happy!”
We walked off
before the thought could take root, on the sidewalk
warm with puddles of sun
and left a ghost, the one we knew we couldn't care for,
we left him to drink it.

It's spring now.
I see the same haunted puddles and I fumble
with the sun, I want it all back!
but it doesn't want me,
I'm a pile of dead leaves and helicopter seeds.
I'm not suited yet, for growth
takes time, a seed will dig and undermine
the stubborn soil, the leaves will be green again
and the the bees will be back, but until then
wait out time, it'll move on.
April is the cruelest month.

I can't give it back, this memory
is stuck with me for the rest of my days, as I plant
dying leafy feet in the dirt, hopeless, helpless,
all I can do is dig my feet in, bask
and naively
ask the ghost, “Why me?”
His reply is
the worst silence you've never heard.

I listen and wait to grow.

Website update!

I have updated my website! Be sure to give it a look. New painting and comics abound!

http://phullish.com/

Check it!

Webster

"Whispers of Immortality" by TS Elliot

WEBSTER was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.

Daffodil bulbs instead of balls 5
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.

Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense, 10
To seize and clutch and penetrate;
Expert beyond experience,

He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh 15
Allayed the fever of the bone.
. . . . .
Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye
Is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss. 20

The couched Brazilian jaguar
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonette;

The sleek Brazilian jaguar 25
Does not in its arboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.

And even the Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm; 30
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.

Yeah, they're flowers alright. mhm

Mountainous