using a brush made of chicken feathers

 using a brush tied with roadkill deer fur

 at my age i have slight worry for spiritual intangibles

 i’m more concerned with luck or consequence

 the distance between things & words or pictures

 the phase of looking at myself is over

 i feel my hand making a picture

 black swipes of loaded skunk hair

 flying white turns into rat fink chortle

 leaping dragon startled by clairvoyance

 charmp gluk chomf chonk yatz PWANG!

 jackrabbit eyes, buffalo ears

 the abdomen of a weird turtle

 old cougar paws & talons of eagle

 transformed into some terrible cloud snake

 long nose, bulging eyes, gaping mouth, huge teeth

 tight chin of concentrated intensity

 eyebrows like tentacles of an unrestrained squid

 obsidian eyes set off by a twisted ruby mouth

 furrowed wrinkles carve its loony face

 neither god nor goddess nor theological system

 won’t answer anyone’s prayer

 at my age i am an incorrigible mojo slut

 i only desire positive energy singing me into dance

 i follow the corpse road of enlightenment

 may the flaming pearl be my joyous difficulty

 some say the universe is divided by writhing curlicue

 its center a grid shift of auspicious fortune

 i am not from this straightforward place

 i’m banned from galleries & crossed off most lists

 the dumb flatness of this world finds me quarrelsome

 i rarely tell anybody about my private life

 dragons make themselves as gargantuan as a storm

 or small as a sowbug beneath a rock

 become evanescent & disappear in a blink

 the first dragon filled the hole in the sky

 everywhere i wander i find only plumage

 i live in a remote province

 i refuse to explain why i live the way i do

 the literary world has no need of more confessions

 the dragon’s head shrinks backwards before it pounces

 zigzag motion as progress & opportunity

 one moment you think you see me then—

 zippity zap

 i fly through the canvas into a space of distant hills

 truth be told— i start again each morning

 dip my brush until i am present in its tip

 provoke pigment into fire or rain

 old painters & their worn brushes

 inagaddadavida