(“Eye of Newt”, 2020, original encaustic)
I think I’m a very ordinary kind of human
Plainer than pain vanilla kind of guy
And that’s because how I was raised
And yet in defiance I tried to be someone different
So that makes me a fake, at least I think
Until I listen to the kind of music I like
And see I really am a freak.
Sorry Mom, sorry Dad, sorry everyone else
For better or worse
The authentic always shines through.
(6/21/26)
(“Zero Point of Creation”, 2018, original encaustic)
There in the moment
Caught up without a thought
Captured by the sunlight,
A gust of wind, the perfume of roses
The soothing feel of water
Flowing through a garden hose
What was that
Timeless, mindless
Respite?
The gap between all moments of time
The little oblivion
That connects it all.
(6/20/26)
("And Dream of Sheep", 2018, original encaustic)
Time stretched out to fill decades
Within just the blink of an eye
Time stretched out to fulfill lifetimes
Who am I now?
Who was I then?
Alone I rummage around in memories
And in dreams my loneliness
Is crowded out with so many others
Each distinct, often unknown
And I a view absorb it all
An old man living in isolation
Yet each night filled to overflowing
With others
I know my time is numbered
Yet each night I get a glimpse
Of what really is
Just a long strange continuum of lives
Lived in love, inescapably in love.
(6/13/26)
(“The Evolution of Nought”, 2026, original encaustic)
Do you ever ask yourself
How something can come from nothing
Knowing in your bones
There has to be something all along
Even when it’s not technically a thing
That you can’t say really exists or doesn’t
But must be there
At least in some subtle way
For everything else to follow?
Either there was always this subtle something
Or what we have now, regardless
Isn’t a thing at all.
Either way it makes no difference;
A distinction in kind
Dependent on the viewer.
(6/11/26)
(“Creation Myth”, 2018, original encaustic)
Fear is the mother of violence.
And fear of the other bonds the tribe.
The best way to avoid this fear
Is to stop identifying…
Period.
(6/11/26)
("Eye of Storm" aka "Tibetan Blue Poppy", 2017, original mixed media encaustic)
Winds blow
Shifting around an axis
Intuited unseen
Alone I feel in the dark
Alone just me and It
And the shifting wind
Waiting for something
A kind of clarity
A kind of knowing
A kind of wisdom
That only time will tell
I was so young
And now so old
But nothing
Ever really changed
Falling ever falling
Without a ground
And still here I am
Working to see
What is always only
Just sight unseen
(6/9/26)
("Let There Be Life", 2026, original encaustic)
I went for a walk in the woods
And all around me
There was rot and decay
And within that, because of that
There was life.
We can resist
Reject and dislike
What it does
Even kick and scream
But It will always win.
(6/8/26)
("On the Edge of Time", 2026, original encaustic)
It’s easy to think all things
Will eventually wind down
Because that is the path
We see all things are on,
Especially us as we grow old
And all the parts begin to fail
And take forever to heal
As we hunker down
In slow decline.
Without risk, there is no change
And without change, there is no growth.
Eventually entropy will win
And the universe will go cold,
Or so we tell ourselves
As if it’s some consolation
In a world without us.
But looking into the void like this
Forgets where we came from.
We did arise after all,
And that simple, inexplicable miracle
Trumps entropy every time.
Entropy is the known,
The obvious, the given.
Life on the other hand
Is the mystery.
Will entropy ultimately triumph?
Not on your Life!
(6/5/26)
("Lonesome Day Blues", 2025, original encaustic)
My life is in a rut
Without direction or purpose
All I want to do is eat and drink
Escape into books and travel
All around I see society stretched
To the breaking point of collapse
The good persecuted for trying
The bad rewarded for lying
I don’t know what to do
Or where to turn to find a way through
So I’ll just eat and drink
And escape back into my novel…
(5/31/26)
(“Cheek to Cheek”, 2024, original encaustic)
My first memory of my mother
Is of being unloved.
Since then I’ve had three wives
But I don’t think any of them really loved me either
I say that because they all left me,
Or at least tried to once with my current one.
It makes me think I’m unloved
Simply because I don’t know how to,
But somehow that doesn’t sit quite right
Or ring true.
For I know what it is to love;
My mother, my father
Those three wives, and my three daughters,
Not to mention all the dogs
And a few of the cats along the way.
It makes me think maybe we are all challenged
When it comes to loving.
Maybe not the dogs, but certainly the humans.
And maybe this is because we think we have a choice
When love is really something
That simply happens to us and for us
Like a blessing, like grace
Like Sun melting into our upturned face
The touch of something warm and soft
In gentle cheek to cheek embrace.
Sometimes I think I am unloved, unloving,
Maybe unlovable
But then I remember the feeling…
(5/17/26)
("A Migration of Ghosts", 2023, original encaustic)
In the morning I lay in the bath
Slowly waking with a cup
My mind drifts half asleep.
Eventually I start to count
All the people I have met and known
Close and distant
Who are gone.
At first it’s an easy couple of handfuls
But then the longer I soak
The more the numbers add up.
Eventually several dozen names and faces
Have marched across my memory
Each one smiling for an instant
Caught in a moment of what I knew them for.
A parade of sorts, young and old
Which once opened to won’t seem to stop.
It’s not like I’m merely an observer either
Safe in the warmth of my bath,
Like them I’m moving inexorably from here
To there
A parade of sorts, each with our own allotted light
Candles big and small, dull or bright
But in the end nothing but a memory
In memoriam we erect in honor
Without a site.
(5/15/26)
(“Dreaming Gaia”, 2020, original encaustic)
There is nothing beyond this moment
And in this moment
Incredibly
We have the power and ability
To appreciate it all.
Who are we and what empowers us?
Maybe the answer is spirit
But I see it in the form of light
First as settled dust
Then in warming rays
We are this star light
Made manifest
To witness
What is clearly a miracle.
(5/7/26)
(“The Empty Mirror”, 2024, original encaustic)
Oh enlightenment
No matter what they call you
Nothing but a dream
(5/6/26)
(“Original Mind”, 2017, original encaustic mixed media)
In a dream I wander,
Doing some assigned task
Dutifully
Somehow I’m face to face
With a Buddha
Who tells me my past life name
Of Pema So and So
Which inexplicably fills me with joy
Then I’m with a small group of fellows
Preparing to receive empowerment
With three full prostrations
And my old lama
As clear as day,
Confronts me face to face
Asking what I am doing there
To which I simply say
I ended up here
After doing my chores
Removing ice and snow
And in that moment filled
To overflowing
With recognition of my true identity
I beam
As he simply shrugs and nods
And I awake.
(5/5/26)
(“Before the Door” 2023, original encaustic)
There’s a part of me
That would rather do nothing
Not water and mow the lawns,
Weed and harvest the gardens
Feed and walk the dogs
Wash and feed my body
Maintain and clean the house.
And there’s a part of me
That does all these things
Because they need to be done
And they nourish my soul
(As well as benefit others),
Despite the inertia
Of that part that is happy to just sit
And watch it all grow into chaos
And fall into decay.
Patiently my long-suffering wife listens,
To then pronounce,
“That’s sad and pathetic”
(5/4/26)
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