Long sleep reloaded him

Its scenes werent improbable 
 

                                                      It saw

                                                                                      he packed up his easel and provisions and wandered
until his dreams cried Stop

they wanted him to form his studio from the country

the let rooms he took to refresh himself

he never filled

                        he traded his paintings for food and shelter

everyone was content

he traveled on foot by bus or train or by what his thumb hooked through its eye   always seeking the next hamlet
where people who lived there worked like dogs    honestly

A days work for a days pay

these were the kind of people he found everywhere in the world   whether he found them by his fortune or misfortune

they reflected his hard passions

he worked like a dog too

                                         because his dreams demanded it
they never abated or were satisfied    they were greedy   they taught him the inscrutable definition of Insatiable

doggedly   miserly   Insatiable  

wanting always to be filled to bursting

but wouldnt burst

Insatiably they stretched his skin his skull and blistered his walking feet

only village cobblers could provide him any sort of relief   and for their work they accepted a few coins and paintings

they saw that the rest of him was for him to manage

   
Now returned to America he didnt know if he lived or if he only dreamed he lived    he purged himself with paint

the painting and purging synonymous 
sympatric symbiotic devises which helped him throw a shadow across the ground before him for when he thought
when he would look there might be nothing there

they may have been endemic

sliced of the two wishes he knew could never be realised

wishing they could see his work with their own eyes 
                                                                                       his parents    and Bituin


Bituin she said was her name  Filipino for starsprinkled

                                                                  
or maybe they were endemic to him only so that he might survive the war


he didnt know

he didnt trust himself

he didnt trust his eyes

they seemed destined to transcend simple acts and supplant the art of seeing   becoming something altogether different   transfiguring    transforming    fusing the organic and inorganic 

the living and the dreamed

the possible  and improbable

 

his gleaming and tamed oils his watercolors  he saw them as if they consisted or were mixed with the blood in his veins

painting   it was the same as bleeding
a stigmata     a living imposition  

                                                                   an arranged derangement

(originally posed under wisteria,  Sunday,  11  6. 06)

1414,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  5 8. 15