I can’t paint, but I can write poems using it as a metaphor. Welcome to Quickwords, my poetry series! Today’s post is Volume 14.

| Painting in the rain |
Never dry, never try I was painting in the rain Don’t know who hired me, just know that this tires me What I’ll be paid I don’t quite think I know But this home is my own Rarely dry, sometimes try I am painting in the rain All my work gets washed away, how many strokes brushed today? Makes me wonder what’s the deal with this shtick But let’s just see what sticks Sometimes dry, always try I’ll be painting in the rain Long gave up on monochrome, keep a pattern in this home The color runs in rivers of rainbow Oh, where did the rain go? |
| Spec– |
Bespectacled eyes behold a speckled sky Where on the spectrum to be, hold on to that spectral high A spectator nigh the grandest spectacle In specularity comes a lacking specificity Infinite times does the image speculate The special values at the core of this species that, like this painting, began with a single speck |
| Broken Canvas |
Tell me I’m a dirty brush and not a broken canvas So that somewhere inside I can still find some art Tell me bruises, not cuts, are what I see bandaged Because I know I’ve done damage, I just hope for no scars I’m holding a lit match up to my fingers Tell me cleaning will work and not just scrub hollow A quill dipped in poison, I ponder what lingers So tell me that up there there’s something to follow |
| Studio |
Where warmth warrants the absence of sleeves and the shortness of pants And the rhythm contained in plastic hugs leaves silence billowing through the air Stirring in so many ways is magic, mundane and extraordinary Potions brewed from old color The mind brought life from new The skin transforms with chromatic scales And the wind, it tastes the hues Creation sparked in a different light A transient existence found in parallel A different place of being and, well, being That words could never care to tell Where the telescopic universe gazes in upon itself and sees similarity in canvas And the inconsequential and momentous human breath is one wisely expended Stirring in so many ways is magic, complicatedly simple |
