When I feel lost in this world
full of potential
and twists and turns
When I feel I have no place
in structured conversations
and I barely recognize my face
When I have no friends nor foes
or at least I can't see them anymore
my aunt, my cousin, my dad propose
that art is always open
that poetry will always listen
and my history is my token
I am the culmination
of my family's art
So I will work
and tear myself apart
with verses and rhymes
and paintings and designs
'Cause our history has no end
so long as on my shoulders it dipends

I spent all those years
painting achromatic smiles
on my sad muses.

You can paint infinity
on a set of plates
that lay here before me,

share a season’s story
leaving out what is gory.

You can dance in skewed
perspectives,
make rainbows cry
while a little child
staves off this painted rain.

You can make manifest
the spirit over which
you give dominion
to all who live in
this little world.

Let lovers walk
from pools reflecting
many shades
that illuminate
the end of days.

Can take the infinitude
of every instance
that made you, you
and summarize it
in multiple tints
of blue;

Take the beauty
and wonder of
a stranger’s face
lit by inspiration
as she reads
by a windowpane,

while I can take apart
and break the art
you made with your heart,
to write this silly little poem.

Every cascading curve,
Envisioned and brought forth
Colt brushes accompanied by oils served
Gentle glide to slight drag North
Smooth, fair *******
Of yellows, white and reds
Complied thoughtful hues
Silk of emerald, bride of white
Paintress’ gaze, lovers by night

A vintner of aged leaves in the wine-press of the sun,
Thin-skinned like the lucent grapes from the vine-runs
Of the island trellises and teal-cordoned waves, lowest slung
Fruit-laden bough of sky, Sicily, whose ateliers of rolled cigarettes
And uprolled sleeves like tides tease smoke into studio paints,
The black apple wine of storm made into mouthfuls of pulp rain,
Before the sunrise is gathered again in fishing nets and crab pots,
The coastal towns with their salted roofs of pied clay and pigeons
Along the lava stone streets, and night from the chanteuse of Egypt,
Singing her coral to heron, as when her bird-like barefooted slaves
Left tracks across Old Kingdom wastes, so this dreaming old man
Leaves his wrinkles to these grapes and across the sand-island pillow,
Asleep with his fathers, hay-hauling peasants of wandering darkness.