He dies in colors, soft streaks of agony.
A brush drips red, his pulse fading pale.
Canvas glares like a silent judge,
edges frayed, stretched to rupture.
Every breath, a bruised whisper of creation.
Turpentine ghosts choke the air.
He is both weapon and wound,
hands trembling on poisoned timber.
Each stroke bleeds away his hours,
pigments crushed under frantic weight.
Living kills him slowly: waking, eating,
pinned beneath the weight of vision.
His palette reeks of ruin, marrow-deep gray.
The easel leans, a crooked crucifix.
Shadows coil beneath his feet, rooting him.
Paint wars with him; the war is his own.
Art consumes, art devours, he lets it.
Sacrifice shows teeth, most dire.
He falls, into his masterpiece burning.
Ash scatters hues, he becomes his release.
The artist starved beneath dawn’s cold whisper,
easel tilted, drunk with yesterday's grief.
Paint clung to his fingers like blood,
a palette broken, leaking joyless rainbows.
Each breath was a war he couldn't finish,
lungs collapsing under the weight of color.
Light cracked through the blinds,
half mercy, half mockery,
and the brush trembled in his grip,
a dagger dipped in quiet despair.
Every stroke carved pieces of him away,
his veins screaming for reprieve,
screaming louder than the silence.
Coffee cups gathered dust on the windowsill;
he hadn’t noticed them for weeks.
The room smelled of sweat and turpentine,
raw and sharp as the edge of failure.
Each design stripped him bare,
flesh scraped thin by his own will.
He fought sleep like a boxer with no gloves,
shadows moving faster than his hands.
“Keep creating, keep bleeding,” hissed the echoes,
as if ghosts held the brushes too.
The canvas stared back, white as a corpse,
waiting for its pound of flesh.
He had died seventeen thousand times,
not once with enough left to bury.
California Pride
From San Francisco to Sauselito,
I transported a steaming hot burrito.
I have to Golden Gate to thank -
but for that bridge, I would have sank.
My brain is back in boxing form.
What? You think it's not norm-
al for a man to boast
from the California coast?
Sauselito
Sauselito has every vowel - neato!
Passive Aggression
Welcome to my house to dine,
fresh lemonade or turpentine?
Turpentine my beloved twit,
but I'll switch glasses when I see fit.
Van Gogh's Decoherence
Van Gogh's eyes were sensitive and keen.
When he painted a pastoral scene,
his ear picked up interference
and suffered impulsive decoherence.
The grumpy wind cries through bottle glass and bone,
Grain silos whine like widows at the gate,
Each sunrise shows up but exits the dongas alone.
The main street sighs,its colors ages out of date,
A dronkie in overall insults the deserted mine,
His guffaws crack,deranged,underneath the weight.
The spaza still sells nyaope and wine
And phantoms line where concertinas used to play,
Their sounds of tiekie draai to hosannas of turpentine
Youngsters pursue tyres that stagger,then spin away,
Grime hides their glee,fields no longer yield,
Old topies sit like statues at close of day.
You comprehend-beyond the rot,
The shattered shield,
A determined ditty reverberates tenderly through pain
shadows reek of turpentine
scarlet-lettered trespass sign
fences dangle off the hinge
matted cobwebs festive fringe
spiders dance on abused toys
murderous crows' ghastly noise
unseen faces give you pause
rebel souls without a cause
unfriendly lot, wise be warned
you now living, the unmourned
leave us ghosts to haunt in peace
that your mind retains its lease
babysitters never came back a second time
it’s not our fault we lied, we were not bad
one of them got stuck in turpentine
but the worst sitter of all was our dad
they were no trouble at all he told our mother
when she woke him from his deep sleep
this was before we had a little brother
three of us really made a sitter weep
Ah, the fragrant fumes of paint drying on a picket fence
followed by the grease-stained smell of turpentine on the brush
Though doubtless matched by the aroma of oil spills gracing
a service station’s garage floor
These pungent memories of childhood, wiped clean today
by vastly improved technology, yet linger with me
Written, March 24, 2025
For Contest, Your Choice E sponsor, Brian Strand
******************
hands aegis
sculpting lullabies
cradling
warmed by
candlelight - wax
flesh
muscle
breath
zephyr
exhales
inaudible eulogies
exuding oxidation
of
turpentine
nectar
of
ebony &
onyx
varnishes in
liniment
to coddiwomple
fingers &
dactyls
tracking
ectoblastic
layers
labyrinth puddles
yen's fuel trigger
perspiring
bruised blooms
quivered reverberations
declining
blossom
obscured in
sunken strands
of
sprouts
&
burial site
effigy melting
Inside
silk gloves
Inspired by the song of the same name by Iron Maiden
In nineteen eight-four, a heavy metal band
made a statement about a minute hand.
The Doomsday Clock was ticking down,
telling us we might not be around -
much longer.
You could say, now is now, and then was then,
But, maybe, it's nineteen eighty-four again,
except, that now, it is the second hand,
to tell us how long we have left to stand -
on earth.
Today, the timer stands at eighty-nine -
makes you wanna drink Drano or turpentine.
It's not that I want to cry or make a fuss,
but the murderer, my friends, is us -
you and I.
There are many ways that we could all die.
You might think we should get ready to say goodbye.
Nukes, climate change, and greenhouse gasses,
are some things that could kill the masses -
uh oh.
How ever did we get into this mess?
I do not know the answer, I confess.
How can the human race resolve it?
Those who caused it, now must solve it -
you and I
PASTELISTA degas chardin
manner &
movement
investigating light
broader
freer
soft fragility
layered
superimposed
turpentine
sealed
Betty didn't came to her own wake
said she had other things to do
Didn't share the news with the mourners
she hadn't heard of her own demise
Wretched wet warm summers
clouds of turpentine
Going to see the river man
and tell of her past travails
Betty is wading in the bay
without a word to say
unaware she be missed
The future is here
AI is its name
It too is concerned
with the gender game
A feminine name
like Alexa or Cortana
does not pull its weight
in the state of Montana
While masculine names
like Harley or Hal
too easily become
'good old boy pals' ...
So when selecting a name
I hereby recommend
Pick one as neutral as possible
~ like 'Vulture' or 'Turpentine'
He ate a caterpillar sandwich
Just to prove he could do it
He just gritted his teeth and
Chewed his way right through it
He washed it down with turpentine
Which he preferred to any wine
Ate a chunk of matured horse
As his favoured second course
His dessert was a trifle smelly
Being served in an old welly
Frog legs steeped in prunes juice
Just to keep his functions loose
If it was edible he would try it
Really liked a varied diet
His fame grew as a gourmet minger
Celebrity status as hash slinger
Every week with language obscene
He appears on your TV screens
He doesn’t care what you think
Doesn’t need respect or thanks
Just keeps checking his accounts
In his five or six offshore banks
Out-built, humped, and beached, breached by moonlight,
nothing comes out of an old barn unfound.
Engine oil, the fungal fur of time warped wood.
Weather-eaten iron coated by rusted smears.
mouse hairs that rise upon old horse leather.
The green metallic wine on tin cans
a devolved acropolis of tractor parts put aside
for a thousand nights to seek and hide.
Gaskets strewn where tangles bloom.
Nothing lingers long without leaving its print
nailed to the air.
Possum pelts patch-work timbers into skin-deep quilts.
Tobacco smoke and sweat, the turpentine film of the
once varnished, the once cherished.
Treasures bolted to a deathless sleep, well rubbed
tackle and tools harnessed now to a tumbled-down dust,
a sun-frayed flap of light slipping in and out
as if time could be fixed and torn shadows mended.
Out-built, humped, and beached, breached by moonlight,
nothing comes out of an old barn unfound.
Engine oil, the fungal fur of time warped wood.
Weather-eaten iron coated by rusted smears.
mouse hairs that rise upon old horse leather.
The green metallic wine on tin cans
a devolved acropolis of tractor parts put aside
for a thousand nights to seek and hide.
Gaskets strewn where tangles bloom.
Nothing lingers long without leaving its print
nailed to the air.
Possum pelts patch-work timbers into skin-deep quilts.
Tobacco smoke and sweat, the turpentine film of the
once varnished, the once cherished.
Treasures bolted to a deathless sleep, well rubbed
tackle and tools harnessed now to a tumbled-down dust,
a sun-frayed flap of light slipping in and out
as if time could be fixed and torn shadows mended.
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