you're a penguin

I am having breakfast:

two eggs and toast, with very hot tea.

my phone rings but I don't want to answer;

there's simply no reason why I should.

my eggs would get cold if it were a lengthy call.

but mostly, there are few people with whom I want to talk.

you are not among the few,

unless you're a penguin.

his red beret

with a yellow sun and a brilliant green sky,
this small village
on the Mediterranean coast of France
has blue boats and streaks of hot sand

fish in wet nets at dawn on a busy beach

deep-vermillion color of the harbor's water

light which is more than light.

the tall man wearing his red beret
carries two easels,
one with tiny points of paint placed artfully

across a stretched canvas.

a wife sits in a rented room

old cobbled streets

a steep hill to climb,
and a narrow view from an open window.

Collioure,
summer of 1905:

warm!

and it rained in July.

Vlaminck held the letters which he read
over and over:
the wild beasts had escaped!
one certain mustache,
unshaven,
pipe in mouth.

another with glasses the better to see invisibility.

unnatural minds,
looking without success for dark shadows
while finding even more shifting light,
intensely,
vividly,

pointing to open space on a splendid line,

while the evening fish were eaten whole. 

a humorous Matisse

The Blue Owl could not tell her creator
how she tried to fly at night,
but failed to get his price.

The task to tell the master
was left to a humorous Matisse,
who, without reticence,
spilled the news obliquely.

800,00 francs might seem a lot,
but it was a very large canvas
and expected to gain an even bigger price.

Being emotionally insecure,
Picasso was in constant need of
reassurance.

So,
Matisse wrote that the beautiful blue
of the bird actually looked wildly black
under the artificial light of the exhibit.

That was his explanation for the smaller sum.

And birds in flight symbolize freedom.

They both loved birds.

Picasso loved money, too.

much more than the birds. 

underneath a fine Parisian sky

Montmartre

on a steep historic butte 

with fresh strawberry tart, 

unwrapped nudes,

& excited affairs of the heart 

underneath a fine Parisian sky 

watched i 

seated outside my busy sidewalk cafe 

wondering what people say 

by the walls of the ancient Sorbonne 

in their studious Latin tongue. 

nearby, the spry 

Agile Rabbit 

sitting on his vineyard hill drinking cheap local swill 

with a painterly friend of mine, 

asked Joyce if he really had a choice 

or was it just a rumor about the invisibility cloak? 

perhaps another drunken joke 

about a man stuck inside his wall:

a shadow of a ghost before his eventual downfall? 

there's more that i should say: 

i recently talked with Claude Monet 

about his first impressionist flowers brush-stroked every single hour until 24 had been made. 

he said he was adequately paid. 

i sipped my warm cafe au lait wishing this Paris memory would stay and stay!

 

then a wind and hard rain came up abruptly and took all the suspense away. 

Montmartre 

on a cobbled July afternoon 

in the shade, 

stirring with an unfashionable plastic spoon, 

i the tourist began to consume 

a Lebanese grape and a sweet pepper with a stem shaped like the quarter moon. 

the slightest trace

corpus callosum

amygdala
basal ganglia
i am looking for you everywhere
but can't find you anywhere.

are you a sore on my ass
a bent blade of grass
a lady with exceptional class
or nearly nothing at all?

thinking, but i can't recall
from where are you watching me
and why aren't you here?

i want you near, dearly

tell me if you're close by
with a simple sigh so that i
can finally be at ease
would you, please?

i sat by the pond & watched the fish
poked at my food, didn't finish the dish

lost the appetite i tried to keep

but wanted you

took a quick peek
saw nothing interesting, went away
and determined finally to stay
away, 

but your pull, your eyes
eventually even i realize
there's magnetism and magic
in desire 

along with the tragic

Oh yes, i'd like to see your face
the faintest hint, the slightest trace.