Rob Diebold

Art



She painted the smallest hands
sounded so small
painted my silence
with rain
gold to her sun
while rendering me inside
rigid and blue

     how appropriate
     how naked
     spiritectomy

stripped me to a layer of crud
sipping oleander tea
dancing upon her pallet
falling beneath her easel
blood sugar crashing
my soft pallet folded
split (framed)
red around my gash
gaping (graphite)
grinding charcoal eyes
critical and hot
threads of insanity
poking through the fabric
the homemade paper
faded silver sense
returning
to the earth
the worms
she painted my rude
red muscle dark
squeezed more than lead
from my chest
my dying carnation

My Biology



My life on the head of a pin
the color of burnt sugar
an accumulation of cinnamon
blowing through a yellow kitchen
mother's laundry song humming
lawnmower
lawnmower
green sounds all around
all the green sounds becoming brown
and all the fingers scarred by tools
left burning in the dirt from the white sun
The smell of mystery and nature
ground down to a piece of pocket resin
left turning in the haze of diesel vapour
A world within a fleck of spittle
my biology my water
as thick as a warm spill of wax
but small and grey beneath my nails
to be removed on a warm stone evening
with limes and water on the porch
beneath some rare acetylene shower sky
In a cool dark corner there is an antique
bookshelf rubbed black with the oil
of my hands and collected stains
and bandages and images
and broken red clay masks that gave us faces
when we were ghosts
I can't touch the photographs
or look at them again

Chinese Painting



begin with orchid
each leave must breathe
with the feeling of the moment
was the root slow?
did the dragonfly light?
broken leaves should emphasize
dying
on a windy day
the beauty of white bamboo
technique of plum
five branches drawn
three branch upward
free form left slant naturally
show me old tree
bloom new branches
deep at night late
when I write with brush
with iron band binding
prints of flower grass
poised

 
Clay Of The Earth



The weight of the earth
pressing against
the cargo the freight
the soles of my feet
my mass in a eucalyptus fog
my cells dividing
exploding into stars
rare spirits expanding
overcoming resistance
kinetics
urgent and warm
glands open and close
with motion
changing and leaking
chemicals to the brain
recover me
from sickness
terror and misfortune
shelter me
in skin and sticks
and heat and sweat
I feel the growth
the forming of flesh
and new voids filled
with fortified blood
and hard thick strength
rendered physical
physical

throes of acid in the muscle
primal and uncreated
regenerated
calm and true
elevated
in the moving steam
distant as my brothers
prayers
windows
moist
my brother's breath
resting
near me
consumed by movement
of oxygen
for the heart and mind
sweet hard thorax
opens and shines
running air to the spirit
so deep alacrity
stretches with my Father's
animals and children
lifting and moving
until I am that free
flying with the dry skin of rose
and the bulk of sculpture
pressing into and moving
the clay of the earth

Concepcion



An ocean of blue black time
and we heard...
the bang of salty sea hash
is combing the air for gulls
on the pier
we twisted into paper
and Pacific kisses
dark language falling
from your full Spanish lips
on my neck and fingers
on this island of sombre
thin flesh
no sienna bloom spreading
on my arms and chest
no support as musseled pilings
in the ocean bedrock crumble
but I held your cloth
and brushed your hair and I stroked
your darkness with a sea comb
and that was enough
that was sea-green enough
to unglaze and release the smoke
from your wide and copper soft eyes

Ebola



Walk into the deep hum
and loose blue jungle
Gaspar Menga
a charcoal maker
in an extraordinary portrait
in his charcoal pit
deceased
beneath his clustered family
died
and did those bodies burn?
or scorch the skin of fear
of nature uncongealed
smell the blood
and melting latex
before the clinico experimento
But it's over now
perhaps
the silence and the stitching
is leaving Kikwit quietly
the insects hovering over
the stinking rodents still flowing
across the fields of crosses
fields of brown Zaire
shrinking beneath the roar
of an ancient cargo plane
rising like a stain
on a slack white sheet