Ed Rusch Paints the Edge of the West – or A Nearly Found Poem

Two 

         Ed Rusch

                  decades

                           of paintings                        

                                    they glow

                                             as if

                                                      in a reality

                                                               that

                                                                        clumps

                                                                                 meanings

                                                                                          of time

                                                                                          they                                                                                                     might

                                                                                          also

                                                                                          suggest

                                                                                          a

                                                                                          Far West

                                                                                          as

                                                                                          the                                                                                                       Edge

                                                                                          to

                                                                                          an

                                                                                          End

Old Trader Vic Bergeron

Old Trader Vic Bergeron

         Limping through time

                  one leg dragging

                           pirate-like

Across almost a century

         of simple syrup and rums,

                  leaving a hint,

                           here and there

on passion fruit,

         dragon fruit,

                  fruit bats

                           and joy!

Oh! The Joy!!

         A gentleman

                  sitting at tables

                           of many islands.

Cortijo Fain

Rain of Andalucia falls in an olive grove

         tap tap tapping on old leaves,

remnants of seasons remembered.

A white farmhouse

          sits posing gracefully,

its skirt of trees spread over the hills.

Lightening cracks February’s sky.

Cannibal

Mother’s teeth and talons

RIP skin, pieces of flesh;

torn from my abdomen

bits of this and that

searching for an organ

I’ve hidden far from

her gleeful cannibalism.

Father’s civilized

knife and fork

puncture my surface,

where a lost river

of moments,

undistinguished events,

left above high tide line,

dry and blow away,

to float with clicking,

irrhythmic taps

on severed limbs

each braceleted with buoys

of broken light in odd colors

passing in an endless

holiday season.

this treasure can be found,

even shrouded under a blanket

of sleepless sleep,

its klaxon,

against impending drift,

ringing for eternal routine.

A Toast To The Missing

Here’s to all your severed limbs

that lie drying in deserts

far from their owner’s sins,

and more of the same

that have long lay rotten,

far, far away in jungles

forgotten. Will all these bits

lacking prayer leaven,

after a time find their twin

in a somewhat mangled heaven?

The Vanishing

Mount Tamalpais vanishes

         behind clouds.

                  Rain is coming.

The Headlands stretch

         to disappear

                  in fog.

That Ship

That ship over there,

         leaves a golden state,

whatever its heading,

         wherever it makes landfall,

as steam rises,

         from that moving altar,

as its hull cuts a cemetery sea

         above each rank of corpses

under quiet fathoms,

         as its wake remembers

all the fallen,

         as my eye seeks horizon’s end,
I recall you are one of them

         and I will soon be.

Stone Circle

A lonely dusty path through olive trees

and cork oak leads to a stone circle

thousands of years pass

the path, different trees,

different people without ritual

stand once again among these stones.

The circle stands quiet.

Asylum

We ran room

to room 

never knowing

whether to cheer 

or shout alarm.

Asylum walls scream

Locked doors,

empty corridors,

tiny windowless

space

Arms grasp

wrists,

labeled

with name,

ward,

malady

A lesson

authority

restraint

in a hell,

white and blank.

Angry faces

whose eyes, at last

freed from their cages,

devoured each child’s dream.

90 Degrees From the Opposite of Everything

90 degrees from the opposite of everything

a surfer watching a mountain of drought

sweating sand wearing a wetsuit

90 degrees from the opposite of everything

a cowboy with a saddle tied to his stomach

his lariat encircling his own neck

90 degrees from the opposite of everything

a prince garbed in less than his own skin

a coronet shackling his ankle

Unknown

Each birth assures such

         promise held

within tiny fingers

grasping at unknown

         fate and destiny.

Each father looking deep,

         seeks the potential

of that steady gaze;

         intense intellectual

                  or

         calculating criminal?

For now, this future longs

         to begin in a smile

wreathed in bubbles.