Working on a new WIP, but here’s a practice oil painting that I did fairly recently! Funnily enough, I only realized how much I like painting flowers by looking through my old pieces.
This work is one I’d pair with my poem “Empty Desk”:
A desk decorated bare but for a sea-green glass vase
filled with the two shiny stems of immortal flowers
and, sitting near, a small bottle of flower scented perfume.
Thus the flowers may live a day more
whilst the room remains.
Throwback to Christmas 2019 with my pet chicken!
I recently managed to get this pair of Mirella Academie pointe shoes from Bloch and was excited to break it in, so I spent about two hours today–in between some one-on-one meetings I held with members of the university accounting club I help lead–in my bedroom and makeshift dance studio practicing hopping from fifth position of the feet into relevé en pointe.
At this point I’m still waiting for my Harlequin practice dance mat to arrive, so I ended up using a piece of foam board that I had on hand to act as my temporary dance floor. (Plus, I totally wore socks over the pointe shoes to avoid getting them dirty. Can’t really advocate for that as a new fashion look, though.)
Time is the tatter-wingēd butterfly that flits, delicate, among the petals, occasionally pausing for a bead of saccharine nectar. It is a tree’s scrapbook of leaves, considered but never truly admired– when even a breath of air itself takes time.
To bask amongst the fresh fragrance of the tulips standing withered a decade later, the forlorn memories of a forgotten beauty taken with—
to dip one’s feet in the bubbling brook flowing still, but without the liveliness that made it so bright, brilliant—
—that is the feeling of a lost life, of lost time.
Articulation of dreams is no simple task, and at the intangible door of thoughts do wisps of hope await, intertwined, with the silken filaments of regrets and roads-not-taken; alas, one worries he may never live out his dreams, for the days, seasons, years—they pass much too quickly.
Wisdom grows with age, they say, and perhaps that it is true, but only if the entire definition of the word is flipped. Adults say, and they always will say, how children know nothing—that children are naive, ignorant, yet in reality they are the ones who see the world for what it is. The covert masks of strangers melt away in their eyes, their previously veiled shadows struck by the light, for the gentle hearts of youths find it effortless to trust and to love without preoccupation over ulterior motives or repercussions. As it is, it is only later that the absolute fickleness of human emotion and thought is discovered.
Some age faster than others. They are the youths whose sight can end up changing not only their lives, but even the sorrowful temporariness of other beings.
To them, life is no such dalliance.
Cross over the shallow running water
to where skyline meets buried rootstock
Jagged rocks peek past overgrown reeds
and the brushstrokes of rosy flutter plastered
with invisible droplets meld into ticking clockwork.
Indents in the wood worn over time remain
a Game played by Children and Adults alike.
The sky was grey, and even the words people spoke were grey; they curled in the density of the morning fog, ethereal smoke from a dimension that offered nothing but looming depth and an overwhelming desire to change.
Amidst the white glare of the stars
you reach out your hands and feel only
the flames scorching your fingers.
Blind, you remain; yet you are the one to see
[the plagued skin of the defiant]
Deaf, you remain; yet you are the last to hear
[the warning screams of the fallen].
From whence the crying comes you consider not
because whilst the noises and voices conflate
into a disembodied greyscale hum, untranslatable-
a labyrinth of intangible faces to one’s sanity bate-
you stay mute by throwing down all reason
so that they may skitter away to beleaguer
the crackēd bones of those already desolate.
Repulsed by the taste of your own venom
its pungent acridity pervading every bud
you spit on the entrails toss’d safe astray
and rely on the imprints in the dirt for guidance
but the ground before you crumbles away
and you find yourself lost without ever taking a step.
Seeing still all visages through the smoke of the pyre
wondering why their masks are dripping at the edges-
Weep; glass tears scrape at the film clouding your eyes
-and fear- then, if you are finally seeing clear
for all you shall discover when the sun doth rise
when the shade departs and the weak-hearted cower
be the pyrrhic ravages o’ crimson ash mix’d with burnt souls-
all the carnage of Armageddon a simple hand-mirror.
Now greyscale is the shade of clouds o’er light obscuring the colors of horizon in sight the rays once spread focused on solely a spot from whence no wrong can be differed from right. Whilst sodden down minds and beaten hearts lay they sway in the light wind of day no psalms, no thoughts, no exchanges to pay Yet a sorrowful cry that whittles so slow that flakes of gold and white bud have no-say and leave body and heart with nary a way to bring back their laurels and chorus for the grey tied in-side hath naught more-- And dreams are filled with memories so few Paintings of gold that have lost their hue Feathers ruffle and wave, ride low under leaf Black wings and dry nest bring arms take siege but scattered reflections do not shelter make. The wind blows; but there is naught left to take cry they who mimic hath all still to do. Nary are the words, passionate in meaning A heightened gale, an open sail; free?-- no, but knotted and thus the white and the black are cloaked from seeing. They that have become nothing but wisps of dull smoke slip silent through our yearning fingers and memories of cold and dark are all the mind doth bespoke. The details fade away one by one left an empty frame for life itself is grey until the right comes along and gives it a brand-new hue, never the past same; But that day is rare, whilst the usual: It is only an illusion, a self-constructed delusion Created by hope; they deny, but Hope is forever greyscale and her companion, Regret, is just-- there-- wavering steam until the day passes and her eyes gleam from behind offering a deep sigh with a gaze lost yet focused a lonely figure among the wildflowers; she cries a Visit to a place with genesis long before the heavens’ seam burned cold and blue hands brush away the mist to kiss the early dew Ears turned to the twittering of the cloak’d paroquets They muse of a tired existence in a language no longer decipherable to the mind as twisted as the vines of penance wrapped around your hands The water sings--oh!-- everything is singing but his voice is hoarse and the melody a little-- just the slightest- bitter The faintest fragrance, so light that it ought not have been smelled remains.
RGS Journal 