SELF-PORTRAIT

 

  (My poem is based on a painting by Kyla @Deviantart)

This is how my critics will remember me,

the painter gone raving mad in his studio,

a scape of land or sea sadly unfinished,

a sky so morosely dark the blue dappled to gray.

These eyes once joyfully squinted out of focus

so that I might envision the sketched canvas

imbued with pigments, a painting brushed into life.

Now the eyes you see in this self-portrait

lock themselves in a black-rimmed bugging stare

that confesses lunacy. Bands and splotches of red,

blue and yellow: colors meant for saner work.

What am I thinking here? Will a caption save me?

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(C) 2017 by Salvatore Buttaci 

TO SHED SOME LIGHT

(inspired by a painting by Matt Dixon)

I miss the old light bulbs Uncle Sam

replaced with new halogen incandescents.

To shed some light on the situation,

watt prompted intensifying the lumen count?

The white coil screwed into the fixture

strikes me as almost other-worldly alien,

the way it lies about long-life illumination,

the subterfuge, the home invasion

of those content with a darker shade of light.

But what disturbs me most is the loss

of that metaphoric light bulb that clicked

with every new idea bulging with

brilliance, lighting the road just enough

to gather words and phrases to build a poem.

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http://www.salbuttaci.blogspot.com

REFLECTIONS (based on the art of Andi Abdul Halil)

https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2017/04/25/photo-challenge-162/ 

Sparrows bob their feathered heads in puddles

of April rain. Up and down they peck the waters,

their beaks jackhammering the stillness

into concentric circles that reflect

gray-brown passerine faces, a bird revue

of headshots before nature’s funhouse mirrors.

Sometimes I wish I could drink with them,

see how many faces I have worn,

how many shards of water glass reveal

my life’s masquerades, kneel before the puddle,

drink my fill beside that bobbing sparrow

until the rains end, the bird shakes dry its wings,

and the mirrors fade with the amen of my confessions.

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