Today, I want you to write a poem based on a piece of art that you absolutely love and are moved by that is hanging in a museum within 160km (100 miles) of your house. The rules are thus:

a) 21 lines
b) Alternating long and short – no more than 6 words in the long lines, 3 words in the short lines.
c) You must not use any words from the title of the piece in your poem. Nor may you use the name of the museum where it is found.
d) The title of your piece can have any words you wish, and give the key to find the piece you’re talking about.
e) The poem is to tell the artist why the piece is cruel, wrong, missing something, not quite perfect. You may beg, threaten or cajole the artist as you choose. They may be living or dead, it’s fine either way.
f) post a link to the museum or piece AFTER the work, but otherwise, no notes or comments as to what the poem means or why. If you can’t say it in the work – it must be left unsaid.

What if the ocean were the word
and God were the wave
what if mercy were a pun
and love the greatest joke of all?

I am broken, here, in the last
of poetry. Rumi, you lush
loveable devil – I die
to know you, and weep
because I do not.

what if the stars were the hymn
and God were endless cold between?
What if mercy were a rhyme
and love the eternal lack of meaning?

I am alone, here, in the last
of poetry. Rumi, you thin
reed of hope – I can not reach
you to save me. I can not weep
I only scream as I fall.

what if the colors were the novel
and God the banal?
What if mercy were our lips
and love the words we’ve all forgotten?

I am here Rumi
where are you?

If I could be a gnome on a Wednesday
I would strip naked as a blue jay
and soar up screaming mad to the nearly stars
in praise of the lessening of my body

I could own the moment, the short short moment
that defines a man as more than a voice
more than bones or sinew or hope – own the moment
find my way to the cloud-carpet that divides me
man from man, sight from sight,
angel from devil – and be most me
in the inbetween.

If I could be a gnome on a Wednesday
I would connive and control and capitulate
careen and congest and configure and reconfigure
all of the featherful bits of thoughts
in praise of the nothing that every cell truly is.

If I could only lease the moment, the brevity of breath
that defines a man as more than a choice
more than hair or nails or faith – lease the moment
find my way to the moonless space between the sun
that adds me and subtracts and accept me
man as man, sight as sight,
balance and explosion – the very me that hangs
in the inbetween
until all agreement expires
just in time.

Robert Frost was dead the day I was born
and most of the days since, before that
he was old. In the folds and creases
of my mind, I see him glaring
into the cold January sun, his hair
white and wisping – a calamity of poetry
and one last winter.

I watched him step away to tea
with important people that knew how
to rule – he took no care
except walk gingerly – then off
into the shadow of an office
I hear he leaned against a resolute desk
shared a thought, or two, on humanity
then disappeared back to New Hampshire.

These are not choises, they are happenstance.
I am disappointed to have missed the path
he walked.

imagine how the wind would blow
if there were no wind at all
only words like this and that and those
still thoughts we jotted down
from a strangers list of nots

i tell you, fiction, fact and fantasy
there is no wind or at all, there is only
poetry and prose
the still thoughts we did not jot down
of strangers tied in knots

imagine me in nothing – being nothing –
naked as a newborn mouse
only flesh like this and that and woes
sweated thoughts sketched
and sketchy strangers begging what?

i tell you, fantasy, fact and fiction
i am the mouse that is all, there is only
tales and verse
the sweated thoughts sketched
and we two sketchy fictionauts

a) Love is the simplest thing in the universe.
b) Love is the most complicated thing in the universe.
c) Love is fleeting.
d) Love is eternal.
e) There are dozens of words in the english language that describe some form of love. (which is fortunate for poets since it really helps with the rhyming and meter options)

Three shasta daisies
slip the chains of earth
to reach for God
with prayers of infinite beauty

Their shadows call them
back to Earth
the angels sing to them
of Alleluia and the warmth of souls

Each stem becomes a tower
too strong to fail

Their golden eyes see
heaven in the blue sky

Words become them
for an instant.

I refuse the tears
because they are not mine to cry

I reject the sunlight
for it is not my heart that needs this warmth

I let go of hope
because now is the time for things that are real

I deny my dreams
because now must be good enough

It was a Tuesday,
when I heard the man say
time does not exist
and though there are infinite still frames
we only ever live in one.

Only silence
a face frozen in agony
under a blue sky

I watched life
and wondered, is it true?

The heron on my roof seemed preoccupied
with the quick shimmy of squirrels up to the roof
to tan and discuss new age philosophies in all their nakedness

The heron casts a little squint, possibly it was sympathetic,
maybe he wanted to pull up a chair and tell the squirrels
about his time in Baton Rouge. “I’m as American as the next heron,” he’d say, “but that doesn’t mean I have to agree
with every stupid thing we do.”

He squints again as he starts to show off
the frames of his great uncle Merv, his Grand-Pepe
and the overly Catholic display of his great great grandmother Anna Banana Von Blue.

Then he’d slip on his snakeskin moccasins, jump
to the middle of the room, and bounce around as he told
the story of the first time one his kin encountered a bulldozer
in the pre-purple loose strife swamps.