Carpenter & Toll – Nov. 10

Dayna Carpenter and Chris Toll traded art. Dayna gave Chris this painting, entitled “Cool September”:

In response, Chris wrote this poem:

My Transitive Estate

Rain sits
in the evicted easy chair.
A yellow leaf
on the sidewalk
breaks my heart.
Why is us in Jesus?
Laura sits
on my cedar chest.
She wears sunglasses,
a gray cashmere cardigan,
and nothing else.
A poem is a machine
that breaks your heart.
Why is a Bud in Buddha?
In the woods behind a monastery,
flakes of rust brim hunted eyes.

* * * *

Chris gave Dayna this collection of four poems, entitled “Behold My Beautiful Machines”:

Follow Your Heart

Chaos is my preacher
and a Big Voice pours through me.
My ghost brother poem
questions prose
until it vanishes
and leaves a rose.
I build my castle
on a noctilucent cloud.
Dust bunnies attend a webinar.
My church is on its stones in the rain
and begging for mercy.
After the gnome robs a bank,
he showboats in front of a surveillance camera.
The Muse lives without.

Electricity Is My Friend

Bless me, Monster,
for I am a hymn.
Why is a dent in resplendent?
The ghost of a full moon
haunts the sky.
In the bathroom of a motel room,
two federal marshals
wash the blood
out of hundred dollar bills.
Why does ruse rhyme with muse?
Autumn sips her coffee.
She cannot be consoled.
Why is a descent in incandescent?
Art is the bed where I cry myself to sleep.

When Will A Kiss Be in Kismet?

I take my guitar into a forest,
find a clearing,
kneel.
and play to the trees.
What is liar the lair of?
Three women sit
around a dining room table
and put together a jigsaw puzzle
that shows a Bigfoot
visiting Baby Jesus in the manger.
Why is a hero in pheromones?
I’m everywhere and nothing,
Paradox is my toolshed,
and I can’t help the way I am.

Truth Is a Pathless Land

Banks are the new churches.
With pointing steeples,
the old churches accuse the sky.
My heart is a little red fist
knocking on a big black door.
The white statues of Mary and Jesus
stand like fangs dulled by use and age.
A meteor shower has a hole
in the sleeve of its coat.
A pigeon eats the chunks of food
in the puke on the sidewalk
across the street from a gay bar.
A woman puts on a domino mask.
She has a life – and it’s moot.
If Christ is petals snowing from a cherry tree in spring,
how does He prepare a mansion for me?

In response, Dayna created this painting, “Beautiful Machines”: