Purple messes
Picassoesque paint stretches
through bright globs of red and looping pencil sketches
The best is the freshest
it rests near the grocery checklist
The restless method in his hand is so impressive
All that’s left are the mementos that dress the fridge gallery
Stress is suppressed around its effervescent reality
There’s a picture from the park that makes him look like Hunter Thompson
And another with his mom
before the monsters came and got them
My boy’s rocked a beatbox since he could walk
and I don’t hear him anymore
(Not since the screaming stopped)
I’m disappearing through the door
I’m forming holodecks of regret
and living through it
The smell of the textured tempera is vital fluid
It oozes through my senses
fights off the darkest thoughts
I miss hearing him learn how to talk
And so I sit like a tourist
and pretend I see him creating
But he ain’t….
all I’ve got left is the paint.


Torn sheets caked in grease
its pre-geometry increases
In every piece and I am speechless
Deciphering signals in the signature style
Tradition is wild and I’m living in them just for a while
I’m in a state of denial – the fine line minds find
To rhyme a bit of reason
Believe it, these are treasonous times
I’ve been defeated by surprise and rise up
the most high
Ultra violet black light – and I will try to survive
But there’s nothing here to work with
I can’t even figure out why things
ever seemed so perfect
I’m on a desert island but forgot to pack the discs
I exist in the midst of these wax and marker glyphs
I’ll rip them down and lash together a raft
Piece together a better map
Try to find my way back
To the shores so sore that they don’t exist any more
While I’m sitting on the floor
Wishing that I could see him more