pianist

I made a mistake by saying thanks

to the man for dusting white keys.

Rag in hand, I assumed the man

made a living fighting a sneeze.

My father made sure to catch it,

“This man tunes pianos,” he said.

Minutes after my quick exit,

a song and fact were wed.

Removing dust, an act of praise,

supports the ear to recognize

music beneath neglectful ways

perhaps he played to realize

what song is his, a song he gives

to clients and neighbors who don’t know

that another realm still exists

thanks to those who hear piano.

painter’s prayer

while painting a chair tonight, it’s painting me

sky blue and blur to look down and observe

my hands have traveled seas

Pine Ridge Reservation & Standing Rock, The Dakotas, USA

Mom said it felt like another country.

Trailer homes with upside-down American flags in the yard.

I hope this reaches through the screen.

Can something 2-D scream?

At Standing Rock, the elders said:

a leader must know how to sing.

Music must be heard

beyond the written word,

another religion.

West Oakland

could there be beauty in a dying earth?

could there be so many sides of me?

I try to write in rhyme,

then realize there are so many ways

to write that may or may not

rhyme the way I like,

and I,

me,

absurd,

to a page,

all sound,

all color, all love and hate made and made,

all centuries of violence

and birth and flowers made dry, then mud-wet,

all earth,

all of me,

collapsed into a pithy poem.

the first effort: description.

but as effort was made, rewards were lost.

capturing!

the violet flower

leaning in her last,

behold all the shadows one thin rose could cast.

a poem.

see: West Oakland.

American Steel Studios, Kilovolt Coffee,

where every week,

painters shuffle in, and

out again,

to make way for the new!

do I dare use another space of the page inefficiently—?

 dreams

on the other side of the dream is the climb,

and on another, the waiting.

for those used to failing, dreams are in the steady gazing at suns.

some asked for the impossible: the preferred paycheck,

or a chance to have fantasy’s visions validated by society

as though something as fundamental as inner flight

could fit into some syllables.

perhaps they wonder at the touch of gold,

the clinking of glass,

the flash of importance,

about what must keep wandering.

what is this that requires wilderness again?