Kenton Nelson started painting at 40.

he called me "young artist" today, I
quite liked
that very much.
I'm 37.
I recently broke up
with my words, more of a
we need some time apart, we need
time alone
away
from it all.

We went to his studio
after lunch,
 I saw pictures
of his daughter.
Nine, he said,
she's nine.
Kenton is near, if not already, an easy 60, a clean,
beautiful and capable 60,60 like you
imagine it should be, lean angles confident
like a statue that made itself, or
the simple posture of a tree
pure in the accident, now obvious
from 6 decades of conversations
with the wind.

I recently let my son go.
His name is Jude.
he was less than 5 months old
and inside of his mother.

I did the math quick, deep
and private, calculate the artist and
the girl in the picture, hurry, I did not
want anything at all aware, or that exists,
to see me racing myself
towards equals.
and it was nice to see something on the other side
of those two parallel lines, it was nice to remember
what hope feels like.

Kenton showed me some techniques, some methods discovered
from when he perhaps and maybe
had equally most likely
felt the same hope from
the same and wonderful words, young
artist.
I was new,
and grateful.
We were just
two men
most comfortable
in rooms where walls
cradle our anonymous cathedrals.
We were just two men, discussing tips and tricks
about the laying of
sacred bricks and invisible
colors in glass,
that others may notice, or not,
from the other side
of certain and particular walls.

And
for a moment I did not feel so recently
close to death.
And actually, death is a poor
and shitty word
to ask to mean this, but
right now you see, me and my words
arent exactly on what you might call
the best of terms.

Recently I have been close to something else,
something much different than death, something that does not
liberate, something that does not renew, something
that does not reap, and will not sow, and so
it was really quite nice to learn
that Kenton started painting
at 40.

how strange this sadness...
paper thin yet quite audible, crisply tactile throughout 
every wrinkle in my being, each
crackle of its fibrous layer makes noise
bigger than it's weight and true dimensions, and i
hope to know i think and pray
that it is present-like, covering
a simple pleasure and mystery beneath.

i am on my own again, well me
and my cat Dublin that is. Great
apartment, good new job, and complete
freedom, and the fertile ground for my
self-loathing, ridiculous despair, and most
ambitious fear to seek shading in the light, to seek
out any bend or streak of black, through which to sneak
in and hide my sins, moist
in the warm shadow, patient
in the expectation of bloom.

...and fuck all this morose shit, i mean
i am exactly where i've been working towards, planning on,
and there is absolutely nothing wrong at all.
but sometimes that can be the most deilcate
and dangerous of places...
i start changing the truth of women i have hurt
and do not love, i start accusations of self, accusations
of such magnificent larceny, fraud, cowardice, and
insanity, but then
i fight and actually free the ink, resist the urge to punish
the words due to my own fear, and allow this day
it's own brilliant chance to feel how it may, to watch in awe
at how it can make perfect moments of middle-class beauty, out
from the most hideous of inbred and aristocratic
nonsense.

...CrazyCrazyCrazyCrazyCrazyCrazy...

too many people decided they could not be like Jesus.
and then he died.
and now many Crazyheads are looking for something to do.

they can become you, they can hate you, they can try to hurt
and ashame you.
they can blame you for all their Crazyfears inside of their Crazyheads
or
they can ask you how you are.

at times ive been Crazy.
but then the wind will stop and catch me.
and whisper its all right.

one time i took a walk.
I saw a leaf down
alone on the ground.
i sat down and kept it company.
i asked it why it was so quiet.
it did not wish to respond.
i asked it how it felt and
a Body walked by and told me i was
Crazy.

(October 29, 1984) granddaddy wrote me a letter, a year
before he died.
he told me about life in Canada
as a small boy ablaze
on the precipice of innocence and.

(August 18, 1999) i’m writing a poem for granddaddy
fifteen years after he became a feather
on the breast and plume of the phoenix.
on monday i’ll be returning to school, after a 2yr hiatus of sorts
on monday i’ll stop my affair with cocaine, and spend less time
with my mistress alcohol, and will do my best
to become more like granddaddy was, and is.

granddaddy taught me my first lessons regarding chivlary
and autonomous divinity, he was stern when required, and
abundant with love when required, and many times between then
and here i could have used his sagacity, i could have used all of him
many times since ‘85, but i know he has whispered much enough
since then in his own way.

in his letter, grandaddy mentioned that he used to play
with homemade squirt guns, and he promised to show me
how he made them, but that was a year before he became
the iris of the dragon.

and some people claim that hell is hot, but i know that
right now heaven is peaking in the high 90’s
and that granddaddy and the angels are on the precipice and engaged
in a furious war with squirt guns designed
from a wisdom unpossessed by mortals.

white mountains on fire
your eyelashes whisper
and put them out.
leave it there and look for
nameless queens who speak
with accents of fairy, and who
relax around fireplace magic
and the quiet enemies of cities.
there are empires underground,
religions that do not need buildings
or bent knees to support them.
bumper car bodies that ultimately
jolt the spirit out of alignment.
crook the heart until
it can no longer pump clouds
or drink wide and hilarious skies.
too much swimming through the day hours
almost can’t surface or inhale
hot stars like purple tea, this is
when peaks leak sparks
and the iris becomes volcanic until
wet diamonds fall and calm them.
be firm, the current will grab you
and you will be delighted at how effortless
flight is as you’ve dreamed it, more clarity smiles
you remember that you have
only misplaced how.
modern dangers grow nervous, and shiver, incompetent,
besides ancient and more relaxed warnings.
prophets are immune to akward citizenship
as we defect brilliantly
into the riddle of proud lightning.

And when all else fails...

 Sit alone for a moment outside at night...the evening breeze will figure-eight itself around you like a cat nuzzling at your feet...moments will slow... Then sort of stretch...allowing themselves to rock gently in a hammock-like paragraph of rest and calm...everything kind of slides off...as if gravity has turned to liquid and you are cloud-like, or mist. Your nerves and muscles tingle as they settle and fall limp. The tingle kind of trickles down to the ground below...and then for a few breaths...you kind of blur into this scene of everything...the stars may not be talking to you, but you can feel that they are aware of you, as you are aware of them...and for a few breaths, now, forever, back then, tomorrow, yesterday, all kind of relax their formality and you relax too...everything stops thinking, and grace splashes a bit, breaking the stillness of the great surface...barely and briefly...but it's nice to let go of our self and our mind, and remember those things, that thing, so hard to describe...like hearing a song in someone elses head...the flutter of senses that were familiar before our current 5, before we tried to make the universe fit through our mind like trying to fold a big map or twister game board into a coin purse...

And then - THWAMP! Were f**king jolted right back into whatever it is that were avoiding, or were about to do, are tired of doing, afraid of, etc... And then we look around hoping no one saw us being all free and dreamy and lame and s**t.

 Hopefully we laugh at ourselves and with ourselves.

 Sometimes that has to be enough for me.