It's that time of year again, The Sketchbook Project deadline has come and gone and I have parted with yet another sketchbook after hours of planning and hours of making...this year I melded my painting process with one of my poems...it's a bright yellow mini-tome, a bittersweet creation...yet,
I had so much fun doing it! I really needed this burst of creativity during these cold months...
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| I dedicated this one for my one dog named Max...what can I say? I miss him... |
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I
am vexed. It is all commonplace at first glance—
as
it should be—
The
sky is blue—
or
gray, depending on the weather—
there
is snow
now—grass
will come later— |
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|
the
bare bones of trees have
buds
waiting to burst, but when I take a careful look
around—all
is as it should be on the surface—but
I
know better than that.
There
are other things beyond me—
outside
of my realm—
out
of my sphere of influence—
out
of control. |
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|
I
could wake up screaming some times,
but
I don’t.
Screaming
solves nothing.
What
will be—
will
be. Indeed.
|
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|
Where
do I dare to look?
No
blood.
There
or there. No—wait—
wait
for it—maybe?
Ah,
no, I’m wrong.
It’s
a photograph of trauma—
the
latest life drama
right
there on the front page—
right
there on the television
and there on the latest
gadget screen. |
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|
Where
to look first?
Don’t
blink.
|
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|
Don’t
look away.
Dang,
it’s another train wreck of yet
another
individual
blowing
their wad—
their
existence—
constituted
misery—
making
a mess for others to clean up. |
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|
So
much loss happened long
before
the aftermath.
Someone
dropped the ball
between
here and there.
Shit,
they didn’t look both ways.
Don’t
you know by now?
Stop
– Look—Listen
for
the two sides of the story.
Don’t
you see? Can’t you see?
|
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|
Amend—make
amends—
amendments—
Adjust
yourself—
ourselves—
in
keeping with the situation.
Running
around putting out fires,
it’s
all gone before you know it—
before
you knew you had it. |
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|
Don’t
blink
or
you’ll miss it.
Just
a moment—
a
moment of being.
Be.
|
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|
I
wonder ‘how come’.
What
the fuck, right?
Seriously.
Some
days I feel like I’m running a
marathon
while standing still. |
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|
Beleaguered.
Belabored.
Be.
Been.
The
cold Winter wind that lingers on
the
Spring equinox breath
is
disheartening. My feet are chilled, but
I’ll
get over it—it
being
such a small thing.
There
are worse things than cold feet. |
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|
Some
are sure it’s just a phase we’re in—
adjusting.
The
world is appalling to me—
these
days
I
am vexed
by
it all. Tired. Dead dog tired
of
the latest ‘it’ thing.
|
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|
It
is—it was—it will be—
It
and the many things ‘it’ is—
or
possibly
can
be.
My
head can just about pop off
my
body from thinking—
listening
to it all. Whose side are you on—
you
chose.
Right
or left—
wrong
or right.
My
country ‘tis of thee— |
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|
What
happened to my sweet land of liberty?
Of
thee I—
Of
thee... See?
I
can’t even sing the words—
my
vexation runs deep.
So
I chose to laugh at the way things are—
shake
my head
in
wonder of it all. Disbelief—
how
come—how now,
dear
old brown cow.
|
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|
I
hope to be safe
here
on my acre of the world—
my
home sweet home—
the
one place I can call my own—
there
are no guarantees of that either—
no
matter what I do—
staying
out of it while being in the middle of it all.
No wonder I’m so vexed. |
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| I thought it would be interesting to add the definition of Vex, Vexed, and Vexation... |
