Brush Strokes (2011) Poem by David Joel Rodriguez

'Oh but No...oh but Yess, you know that there it is
To have found the painting resembling your kisses...'
'Tis lingering in my head waiting for the right color
Your lack of desire has caused unlove and discolor

Yes, every brush stroke changes my feel for you
The canvas becomes truly bored waiting for you

'Tired of waiting for the light to reflect off of your eyes
But I know, that behind those pupils spat a disguise
Ferocious colors erupted when I combined my guise
As if Van Gogh curved his illusion, giving me advise'

I could only compare that stroke to a dynamite fuse
a heightened perception of what I was about to use
I began to wander again, merging thoughts with art
Depicting what was and was not off a broken heart

'Your soft strokes used to brush all my sorrows away
Now my strokes are brushing off your vividness away'
Side to side I gently brush, igniting colors, hush hush hush
Up and down without a rush, bursting hues, flush flush flush

What a mess this has become without imagination
The canvas suddenly shakes sensing exasperation
'Get on with it' as if it is dying from paint hydration
So I sympathetically apply more colors of affection

Colors had dispersed from Motherwell to Kooning
From something of meaning to difficulty for wording
I was lost for words figuring I could no longer paint the pain
'You had broken me with your uncolorful heart and disdain'