Daniel Nester

 

The Joy of Painting

That spring, the only thing that calmed me down
was Bob Ross. His voice miked directly
to his lungs, his forest scenes, his mild
invocations of Buddha and Nietzsche--
"We're going to draw a few bushes right here;
that's because you can do anything you want--
It's your world." A gaze never strayed
from the scene on his easel, a happy path
always led to a shed, an outpost
at the foot of a mountain. I forgot
I was sleeping in the basement, celibate,
plotting my escape. Bob Ross spoke to me,
brothers and sisters, he soothed me
with a radio-friendly voice
that less-than-instructional spring.
He pulled the border tape away,
always broke through the sphere
with van dyke brown brushstrokes,
tree trunks and background, always light green.
Go ahead, he said. It's your world.
Stab it straight into the canvas.
It's what's happening to me, right now.

 

All This You Will Find in a Dictionary

Now Carley's reading
up on Trotskyites
in New York from a new
paperback history
of Russia, and I tell her
about Pizza Hut's plot
to hire Soviet
spaceships and burn a slice
on the moon. And Fay Wray
proclaims in the Post
that she STILL CARRIES
TORCH FOR KONG! Carley
tells the story of Saint Olaf,
namesake of a college, who died
converting the pagan
Norwegians. Oh, to be
anything but a poet
at millenium's end...
If I could throw this
all together, roly poly,
might I get a poem
tonight, all the novelists
gone to bed? Can I, please?
Olaf, son of Grenske,
a really cool pirate,
and I, son of Murlin,
a semi-retired trucker, we
pick up our swords
the same as any preening
starsearcher. We scale
the highest buildings,
like Reifenstahl mountain-
climbers, a blue light
on top of those hills.

 

Looking down on your sins

Looking down on your sins
I have waited for the curse,
Father, I have stared at my watch
waiting for wanderlust
to draw me out to the highways,
to widen my face with a hairy beard
and fat-filled oil from the road.
I haven't gone askew, Father--
I have merely moved to Brooklyn.
Here, I see sunsets from my rooftop.
Here, from the Chase Bank Tower,
I know what time it is, all day.
I haven't wandered, Father,
even with this cold coming on.
I blow my nose in the alleys
and cast your image
right back at you, as you stew
in your juices in a trailer
with a new brood, I wait
for mine, standing guard,
centurion-like, I am near it,
Dear Father, I am near.

© by Daniel Nester