DEATH OF AN ARTIST There’s a world of mysticism That lies behind and above Mounds of paperwork Piles of paperclips Drawers full of pens To-do lists full and filling With no traversable paths Over Around Under To find Lady Inspiration’s Most lovely form Caressed & caressing Every second she waits Is a bed of nails inflicted By her cruel acupuncturist She longs for your touch Your firm hand sliding up Shapely thigh Breast grasped With tender intensity Breath fluttering With desire and anticipation To traverse the wall To receive her supple blessings One must go through Through Through Tedium and mundanity Heartbreak and self-loathing Bury yourself In an earthen grave freshly dug by hand Pronounce your own death Officiate your own funeral Self-aggrandizing eulogy delivered hastily Appeasing the few in attendance Attend the graveside Hanky in hand Ready to assist the old maidens So distraught at your decay But you won’t weep You won’t weep for a second Not knowing what you know And who awaits STICK TO THE PATH (an anagrammatic poem) Stick to the path To the path you must stick, You must stick to the path Where the path’s stickiest Each Hoka’s hop itches Thick packs echo out to the past Hit his hacky sacks so that you shake The copacetic sicko’s tchotchkes She’s posh, up hokiest hips Stick to the path, A path to Sciatic’s socket’s ache Opiates chase chaos up pith Coke sick pucks, Sake casks, Shiitake tokes, Apeshit! Sociopathic species’ thick thickets So that cats chop up asps Cheats aphotic caskets to picket pickets Skepticism speaks to skepticism’s sake Stick to the path! The path, it’s Pistache sticks to path’s stakes Thack! Pick-pocket-hit shocks hick, Sketch packets, cops pace Ectopic hotcakes skate To hock out ass pics Thick chats scathe cishet smut Chock it up to peckish septic ticks Oh, stick to the path, chap! Stick to the path! The path! Heck, the path to the peak Each chase etches, it chokes It poaches poetic itches To a chaste pastiche, a haptic space Stick to the path, oh, To the path you must stick CAELUM CONTAINED Sixty-five percent water Glass half-full Condensated firmament Bound in human form Consider me a puddle Splash around When azure turns grey In yellow slicker and rain boots Bathe yourself, tiny fledgling Flutter your wings I within me contain The expanses of the expanse Great beyond visible via crystal orb When stormy veil stirs in mind’s eye Kinship with ether settles Feet like coursing rivers Turbulent Yet steady, constant, true The clouds themselves are my home I am the sky Home of the pall and the gods Eternal heavens course within me And I within them Drawn by sun hands above Transpirating corporeal form To cerulean home henceforth remit Henceforth restored
Ron Arbuckle lives in Oklahoma. He is the author of the novel, A Matter of Design. You can find him on X: @touchgrass_ron