#poem #poetry #amwriting #sketchbook girl

There are times I wish I was a painter.
That I could just walk up to that girl, I saw
and flatter her to pose
for me
in a fashion that desperately tried to recapture
what it was I saw.

I'll have her with an urn on her shoulder,
or reading a book naked,
or floating down the river with flowers.

What I won't have, is...

That passing moment of time,
when happenstance caught her on the back-steps of the church
when I happened to be passing:
in an idle moment of dis-satisfaction;
and startled her in the action of lighting a cigarette.

I won't have that.

Nor will I have the perfection of her youth
caught in the revulsion at my form
and the interplay between the two:
that makes an old man's heart skip:
and jellifies the female form.

But if I could paint her
I am sure I could find countless other old people
willing to admire my eye.

But as a poet one must rely
on those moments when thinking nothing
inspiration comes without words...
to be lost in the telling
unless you resort to the lying
of the visual arts.