Poems of...

POEM OF DISASTER: Ode to Lisa

POEMS OF DISTRESS (18 poems being edited)

POEMS OF LOSS (19 poems being edited)

POEMS OF AFTER (53 poems being edited)

POEMS OF DISARRY (27 poems being edited)

POEMS OF DISCOMFORT (37 poems being edited)

POEMS OF DESIRE (27 poems being editing)

POEM OF DISASTER: Ode to Lisa

Nothing, Not Anything:  Ode to Lisa

What is the color of nothing?                                                                                                                                     
What does it look like? What does it feel like?
Does it feel like what I know?
And if it does, why can't I bear it?
Define it? 

If I cannot bear it, put it down,
Then I cannot let it go, and it rots me
Nothing is all that I have
It cannot be searched for        
Put into words, canvas, or paints

Please tell me, what is the color of nothing?
Because that is what is left
I cannot see it or believe it to have form
I still look everywhere, longing for something
But nothing sets forth

I feel it, barely believe it
Searching for something beyond it
But everything is nothing now
It surrounds my present, my future
Yet not my past, no not my past

Nothing does not live in captured time
Only beautiful ghosts of form and color
But I cannot live there very long
So I look to the present in the smallest amounts
Realizing you and your future are lost

And I am left with nothing, not anything
One death is enough to bear, anymore I cannot
And nothing precedes, gives way
It is too hard to bear nothing
Tell me please, what is the color of nothing?

So I can put it down, make sense of it all  
Make it mine to bear
Nothing is too hard when it cannot be bore                                                                                                               
It has not color, form, or presence
I look for you everywhere, still nothing is there

It stifles me, brings me here                                                                                                                         
But paper cannot capture nothing,                                                                                                             
When it is not anything
I see nothing of once was mine,                                                                                                                           
Yet I feel nothing in all it’s depth   

And to feel nothing is not anything
It is too much to bear nothing
Yet I want to bear it, if only for you
Everything is nothing now, not anything
And nothing physically left behind makes me without sight

This loss is too great to bear
And to be lost in nothing right now, is not anything
I know what you left and keep what is mine
But that does not bring me peace, nor comfort, nor calm of mind                                                                                             Just contempt for the Divine

Forgive me God, faith is weak
And you know my path, the path you laid upon me
But what was laid cannot be bore, asking for mercy   
A force to define what was lost, left behind
Left with nothing, not anything

Still searching, can barely breathe, nothing brings me to my knees
How can something be so powerful as nothing, yet not anything
Do you know the color of nothing?
Can you sit beside me, give me sight?
Or is nothing meant not to be bore?

Can we share something so powerful and painful as nothing, yet not anything                                
I need to find the color, my grief, my sight
My grief is not nothing, it is everything, not anything
Please tell me, give me the color!
What is the color of nothing!?


Wrote March 22nd 2019

July 20th 2018

It's been a while, but still painting.  I am still working on Grief 1 which seems to change as my grief changes and grows.  Maybe Grief 1 will never be done. Working on more paintings for another issue that is ever present in my life.  However it has been becoming entwined with my grief from so many deaths this past year of very special loved ones in my life. This past year has been very hard and crushing for me and many I know.  I feel lost------broken.