just finished

a couple of weeks ago, i got a text from a number i didn't recognize late one evening. here's kinda how the conversation went down.

"i need a painting of a clown holding a bell pepper. i also want this buddhist mantra on it somehow. pain is certain, suffering is optional."-unknown

"ok. i can do that. who is this?"-ghost

"chris. sweet. what would something like that cost me?"-chris

"i'll do it for you for 125."-ghost

"let's make it 200, and i'll send you half now and half when it's finished."-chris

"you suck at negotiating, but ok. it's a deal."-ghost

anyway, as per a request from phil plasma, here's what came of all this. the best part of commission work isn't the money, it's the, "dude, you nailed it."

and the oscar goes to...

you know it's going to be one of those long days when someone says,
"good morning," and the first words that want to jump off your tongue
are, "shut the h*ll up."

i pulled on those reigns before that particular horse leaped the gate
because she was smiling, was genuinely wishing me a good morning, and
she doesn't know me. plus, she's fourteen, and probably can't
understand the angst in me that makes me grit my teeth and play the
role social and civilized conventions dictate.

and it's not that i'm in a poor mood either. on the contrary, i'm
feeling good today. i'm painting, i'm taking my kids to dinner
tonight, so you know, everything is ok in my world. there are just
days, like today, where i don't feel like sticking to the script, when
i don't care at playing civilized, when i don't want to perform my
half of the conversation rituals. i just wanna growl and snarl and
laugh and create and stay in my own head.

but, i'm a professional, so i play my part. i'm like clint effing eastwood.

ghost

spent rounds

saturday night was one vivid dream after another. or maybe they just
melded and morphed one into another. there was a sky that bluer than
anything i had ever seen, and i was climbing a mountain. i came across
a wild man who lived in a cave near the peak. he offered me water from
a thawing stream. he gave me berries. he spoke in words i could not
understand, but i was wary of him. the look in his eyes was life and
death itself.

deeper within the cave i ran into a girl i used to know, a girl i
cared a great deal about. we were nineteen again and reliving the
laughter of days past. and then she was gone, and the wild man was
gone, and i felt a great sense of loss when i woke up.

it's just a dream. it's not real. but maybe you know what i'm talking
about anyway.

there's almost always hope.

ghost

estranged

some nights, it's only street lights that guide this l(one)ly heart to
my bed. Sleep is a capricious thing, one moment begging to take me,
the next, whispering the swirling smoke of idea into my ear.

in this molecular universe of stop motion life and dreamed dreams, i
wonder just how many poems sleep beneath the inkwell of our eyes. i
wonder how much magic leaks away uncaptured, untouched, with the
coming of the sun and our conscious minds.

come then, my estranged friend Sleep. let us make amends. let us
taste the stars together.

ghost

i supppose this is why some of my characters fight so hard to survive

yo, william, out there shaking your spear,

if i'm nothing but an actor on a stage in this ghost town of rose torn
bones and washed up stars, why is it that the galaxy sculpted lines in
the palms of my hands ache?

if i'm just a character in someone's grand play, with no ambition, no
drive of my own, no destiny to speak of other than what is written,
well then, the author and i need to have a little come to Jesus
meeting.

just sayin'.

ghost

the run down

at this moment i've got sixteen current painting projects. three are
are finished and i'm just waiting for the checks. four are started and
in various stages of completion. four are commissions i haven't
started yet. and five are ideas i have sketched up but haven't started
yet, two of which a friend has called first dibs for.

today i am drawing off and cutting stencils for two. i'm also stopping
off to get another canvas this afternoon on the way home. so possibly
tomorrow i'll have two to be working on here. as soon as i get a check
for one of the finished ones i'll buy two more canvases to knock out
the others that are already in motion.

this is the kinda chaos i like, a whirlwind of swirling paint and
ideas that rattle around the inside of my skull at all hours. my eyes
feel like sandpaper and when i blink, i'm afraid i'll get jumped by
the nap i desperately need. but really, lack of sleep is a small price
to pay when the muse is having her way with me.

right now, i feel a sort of contentment. sure, things aren't perfect
in my life, but times like this are when i feel the most like me.

sometimes, in the quiet, i forget who i am.

ghost

deep in tattoo want (again)

i want meaningful lines not tattooed tragedy. i am shedding skin like
the poetry that bleeds from my ink stained finger tips onto the bare
flesh ofyourmiddle.

i want to unfold these gun shy limbs that seek silence while begging
you to staywithme.

you and i both know i have to find that one redeemable verse hidden
within this labyrinth of scardamagedheart.

g h o st

i'm not your hero

sometimes, i try to fall into the night, and you tempt me, dipping my
reticent heart like a tea bag into hot waters, always scalding skin
too long frost bitten.

kissing in ocean beds, your hips, tides rolling towards me, your
desired protagonist, like heroes of myth and legend.

but, with a thousand nights of solitary behind my eyes, the only
person i'm looking to save is myself.

ghost

to my fellow wordslingers

i'm finally beginning to understand that it must be hard for the
people around us to fathom these coronas swirling around our retinas
or the sins we sprout like haphazard similes on our tongues.

it's not their fault they do not understand. it's not our fault we
can't explain the ideas that flow like water, like drifting candle
smoke. and i'm so f*cking sick of saying i'm sorry.

tell me, though, what's an old wordsmith to do with these marionette
string veins?

ghost

giving your bones a reason to stay

Depression, you ride me like a jealous lover, like make up sex.

some days, you are old dust settling in my bones, keeping these
january limbs and monday morning coffee eyes warm.

other days, i don't know what to do with your tornado kisses, your
frantic love bites that mark my poetic skin, with these miles and
miles of hollow space between our magnet(ized) fields.

how is it that our light year hearts still beat in sync?

no, really. don't take this the wrong way, but if you are my only
choice of company, i'd just as soon be (a)lone(ly).

ghost

it's no secret i prefer paper to the buzz of a computer

bone child, this december's winter has our ribs intertwined. but,
never fear. my inferno heart generates warmth enough the both of us.

a few days ago, i awoke in my room, an unfinished room i use for
storage really, but i feel comfortable there, among the things without
a proper place. i have taken everything from the walls in an attempt
to convince myself to paint the interior of my house. as it is, this
room boasts large empty walls. it was a lazy winter morning. the sun
was beginning to peek shyly through the curtain. a heavy silence
dominated the air. i didn't dare move in my bed, afraid that i'd
somehow ruin the order of the world or destroy the integrity of my
cocoon of warmth. in all that stillness i suddenly noticed a small
spider crawling on the wall. i despise spiders, but i watched it crawl
for some time, until the immensity of that empty wall hit me like a
hammer. the slowly advancing spider had walked alone up to that point
and it still had a lot of empty ground to cover.

"the world is a lonely place, little spider," i whispered. and i
suddenly didn't despise him quite as much. the little spider didn't
even notice me though, reinforcing what i had just told him. with a
wry smile i crawled out of bed, neglecting to act on my decree that
when a spider and i cross paths, one of us has to die.

i hope he found what he was looking for.

ghost