Let the Colors Take You to Themselves

Art lives

as long as

it goes unfathomed.

Once plumbed, it dies

a transient’s death.

Digestion precludes disposal.

Therefore, be careful

what you choose

to make self-evident.

Immortality is for

the enigmatic.

That said

to renounce anything

has its uses.

Maybe it takes

casting the self aside

before we can truly

become authentic;

for our bravery to set in,

a loss of inhibition,

the first perilous prerequisite.

Such a quiet compulsion

to go on harboring.

But what other choice is there?

How better to register

the quake that occurs when

the world loses

something or someone

than through

a work of art?

Circumstances are pretense,

but cause is a canvas.

To act,

to paint,

to write,

to dance,

to sing,

to play

“as if”

what we do has its roots

in our deepest being.

As if we matter.

As if others care.

As if we weren’t giving

birth to ourselves

in every single moment.

Dabbing some paint

in the form of words

on a jute

made of morning

is how one begins to

make something

out of nothing.

I like being imaginative early

as it helps me detox

from the night’s ferocities.

My body gets the bends

from rising too fast.

I start every day

a kink from head to foot.

I don’t know about you,

but my nights are

awash in pathologies,

even as my days teeter

atop a heap

of humdrum

literal minutiae:

feed the cat,

piss in the pot,

wash the dishes,

brush my teeth…

to the more

reflective desire

to match my mood

with what I wear.

Blue says

I’m poised for peace.

Red says

I’m looking to connect.

Green always

for want of a woods.