Mid July

When the clock ticks towards the end of July, I begin spending all too-hot summer days painting the blue-jay, A rare and almost-majestic mini, hard to find the right color paint For. But on good days after sunset the air becomes crisp Enough for me to enjoy the change in temperature corresponding with my change Of mood or palette, all-encompasses occurring under That unfabulous shroud of melancholy, that, under Which I cannot keep safe-keeping in July. When the colors on the page scream for need of change, I ignore the plight of the real blue-jay As he exists in this reality of crisp- Air-fragility which causes my paint To dry and crumble like the immature cheap paint Of a five-year old hanging just under My incomplete summer canvas crisp With hopes of an increasingly hopeful July. I stroke the brushed-over blue-jay Feathers fake on canvas which changes With every motion of my hand, changing The color of my paints As I allow them to drip over the image of my blue-jay, The reality now out of sight making reality more clearly hidden under The lie of a canvas in late July. It lies hidden under remorse of lies, crisp With not-yet-oncoming autumn crispness Teasing me with surreality which changes With every movement of a hand this time of July. I methodically repetitiously move my hand to paint but what I thought was real was revealed as not under The surreal thought of the canvas as the actual blue-jay Who fluttered his meaningless blue-jay Wings a long time ago out of sight—crisply Seen crawling around or over, when it should’ve been under The hammock tree in the rain, recently changed To my favorite willow peaceful-painting Locale no matters the month, even July. The time the blue-jay wants most to be changed By the crisp stroke of a masterful painter In the yard, under the hot sky just after mid-July.