Incidentally, here is today’s poem.

California fires

You see a house
not a house really
but the picture
of a house

not really the picture
of a house but an image
of a house

The house is burning
the picture is alive
the image cannot burn

but the house spits flame
and black smoke pours
from every window
as if it had always

been there
always lived in those
rooms
silent
holding its black ash
breath, waiting

for the moment
of its freedom, its
fifteen minutes
of fame

the mountain has thousands
of houses like this
it is not alone
there is nothing unique
about this fire

thousands of spitting
flames
thousands of houses
releasing smoke from
its secret captivity

only the mountain understands
that the piles of
soft ash and new mountains
of unanswered debris

are still alive as they
smolder and the picture
of the black smoking pile
that was a house

is a picture of a new house
a burnt house a house
made of spat-out dreams
in the summer night

thank you for taking on the project. Good luck. I look forward to reading more of your poetry. You are certainly off to a good start.

Lost and found

I dreamed of it, gulping images
of snowbound cottages and wind-blown
frozen blocks of hair: the library
on the hill I struggled to reach,

the smell inside of aging paper
brown as dried apples, the quiet
turning of pages soft as the gentle
dipping of waves over black sand.

I was stranded – or so I thought,
until I emerged to find myself
drinking the bluest deepest heaven
through my pores, overlooking a valley

so pungently green it cleansed
my eyes to see it, and the village
with its church steeple like the
ones I had seen in Alsace years ago,

when it all began to fade, grow
thick and soupy as it blurred out
of focus and I held tight, tight
to the dream as my eyes forced

me out of this world, daylight
forceps grabbing me, prying me
from the most wild and pure magic
I had ever known.

Art has no boundaries
No lines to pass
It’s an open field
With rainbow grass

There are no rules
No objects to apply
Just wisdom and knowledge
And experiences to fly

Your mind goes on
All love goes free
Your body and soul
It’s where you’re meant to be

Friends and family
Will never be apart
They dance on your page
A white canvas of art

I love everyone’s poems! This one I wrote about how I feel about art. I’m going to try and catch up with everyone in the poems.