based on a glasswork by John Sharvin

It is and it isn’t –
scorched by sun, stretched by fire,
solid and bendable –
born from the earth to reach the sky
but sold to the sea instead.
always drifting
but never on the surface. and when
it washes up
you won’t be ready for it –
your feet press the sand
and the sand presses back –
your fingers run smooth
with the grain
and it cuts you –
you listen for the gulls
and they are deafening
but never close enough
to see.

Kind eyes and rough hands,
the vision of fragile globes
and sweeping lines and all
the delicate liquid skies-
the power to bend the clouds
and pour them out, to heat
up the sand and melt it-
the heart to love what you
cannot touch – the will
to live in ash and sweat –
a belly made of fire that
holds the earth alive.

It’s Spring inside these walls-
the yellow birds would chatter
if they weren’t pressed in between
paper and glass – if they weren’t
just ink and paint and water
and waiting.
Reflected in their cage, I see
the cold grey of January,
the bare branches.
These little pretenders –
these little lies of birds
will never know January.
They perch – ready to fly away –
but they will never know flight
or even air or sky. All they will ever know
is ink and paint and water
and waiting.

inspired by Frederic Edwin Church’s Above the Clouds at Sunrise

I climb and stretch,
grasping at stones, reaching for roots –
my steamy breath grows
sour from effort. My back,
so tense it could snap.
The sweat stings my eyes
and drips from my nose,
endless ascension, only by
faith that there will be
a place to rest.
And when my body is
too tired, the wind
pills me upward,
compels my muscles to move.

Finally, the air is clear,
the last stone overtaken.
I was made for this,
and this for me.
The clouds at my ankles
can’t say as much,
dusted pink as if some
great tenderness came to meet
me on the mountain.
Even the trees seem to speak,
their pithy voices creak and sing
to keep my company, these ancient
trees that bend to welcome me home.
And when I can no longer
stand for the glory before me
the monolith itself scoops
me up and lays me down
on a bed of moss.
My joints, the aching marrow
of my bones, no longer
burden me.

Here, my words don’t
get caught in the rafters –
no intercessory mouths
or upward palms –
no walls to hide me from you.
You look on the feeble frame
I carry, the troubled mind, the heavy heart –
You love the sum of broken parts.
You brought me here to gather them.

inspired by Joel Satore’s American Burying Beetle

There you are again!
I see you so often
tI’m starting to notice you now –
clicking away through the air,
the soft metallic buzz of a mission.
Do you remember the first time?
In the cathedral, your wings
like stained windows –
just you and me
and God and the dust.
We were introduced
and then I loved you.
My little solitary king of glass.
Out of the garbage you come
beautiful.
Out of the grave you come
full of life.
It doesn’t matter to me
that you live in
the dark ugly places,
that you are born of decay;
everyone knows the same
can be said of poets.
We turn shit to gold.
We live forever.

inspired by Little Yellow Horses by Mark Franz

Rusty and rolling – their bodies
like the hills. They bow to
the sun, and the mist bows to them.
Their eyes turn and they call
the night back.

inspired by Alphonse Mucha’s Lily and
Valentin de Boulogne’s Judith and Holofernes

Timid little lilies catch her footfalls
and carry her to meet the seething sun.
They weep for her – she laughs to keep them calm
and whispers, Listen friends, the battle’s won!
So carry me to meet the silly king
and we will soon have our night forever.
She sees his face, all dripping and gold rings,
a wide, desperate thing of haggard splendor.
And in his hungary eyes she sees the mark
and sets her aim to bring the tyrant down.
She parts her pretty lips, perfect and dark,
and sings a deep and lonely siren sound.
The foolish king – his heart it breaks and burns
– falls to the sea. Heroic, night returns.

inspired by Landscape by Albert Leon Gleizes

Fractured – a bulb of sun
heaves and sends jagged rays
tripping over stillness.

A home, unkept, a city
built out of place –

A zealot cries in the underbelly,
the violence of silence destroyed

Years kept waiting
on the torn crest of darkness –
the waste of rest in pieces.

Arches stretch and always
end in exile

the edge of life
the return of quiet

inspired by Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World

You are brave.
You ran & ran, hopped
a train & left
going nowhere
from nowhere
& no one ever
saw you again
& no one ever
wondered where
you went.
But before you disappeared,
you took the time
to make up your mind,
you stopped
to drink in
the last home
you would ever know.
You stopped to consider
what you might
miss.
You weighed the cost
& ran anyway.
I envy you.
I was never
brave enough
to run.

based on the photograph Confessional, Czestochowa, Poland by Elliot Erwitt

Business men and mothers,
guts writhing with guilt,
lips waiting to spill
their secrets to the priest –
they are patient and nervous,
their sins, like the line
of confessors, trail behind.

“Zdravo!” rings out over
the square and the little
sandaled ladies clatter
across the courtyard
to greet each other. A kiss,
a “Kako ste?” and a hearty
laugh echo against the somber
stone faces. They quiet down
to trade a few bits of gossip,
ripened over the week
and now, in the presence
of one another, ready to share.

They enter the line with no barriers
but their language (and they forgot
those barriers long ago), no fear
but the promaja, the breeze,
and no burden but their groceries.

The bakice, their bellies full
of laughter, their lips waiting to spill
their neighbors’ secrets to the priest.