Artful Nudes, in Watercolor

Sometimes,
the mood just strikes. Ya know?
Desire is a feathered vine winding through you,
whispering of orgasms to come,
so you take a moment,
and conjure one up.
Sometimes you have to improvise.
Slip into a darkened office,
your own backseat,
a bathroom stall.
Silence is key -
no moans must be emitted,
no panting.

And then the world recedes around me -
I am an iris folding in on myself
expanding and contracting
like the birth of a new universe.
I pause, and think of giant, vibrantly painted flowers.
I step out of my own mind and click "search."
Wait - now I am lost in a blackhole of Georgia O'Keeffe images
(do yourself a favor and click here to see what I saw
and bask in the light of her flowers and her stoically beautiful face).
I am smitten with her beauty
and the beauty she captured with her brushes,
but I'm caught slightly off guard by the nude photographs
of the artist as a younger woman than I usually picture her -
hard to tell, maybe in her 30s or 40s,
but the raw beauty of her in those forever frozen moments...
aaah...it's almost like magic
(or a chemical reaction on film exposed to light).
I see the inner spark in her-
defiance, ferocity, passion,
a dark storm somehow transforming
into a splash of bright flora -
and crave the ability to slip inside her mind,
her body
for just a moment.
I acknowledge that I feel pivoted
to new perspectives of her work
because of this new connection to her physical beauty -
I suddenly see her as a mortal
who had pain and joy and talent and struggle
and was maybe
just a little bit
in love with the pussy.
I mean, jesus.

Not that we can blame her;

it is a wonder to behold.

And for that matter so is the cock.

But I digress....

     where was I?

Ah, yes -

the portraits of the artist -
they stir in me deeper thoughts,
maybe self-loathing.

Maybe I resent the giant leaden anchor I feel

holding me fast against all the ocean's currents,

snaking its way to my hull and keeping me in place -

the anchor that ties me
not to a point of coordinates on a map,

but to a point of relating to the world:
that you don't matter unless you're beautiful.
It's painful to face this indictment.
I've been so sure of this,
but here, in this instance,
I am sure that 

I have it all wrong -
one imbues the other -
Tom Petty's sexiness is derived directly from his music, right?
There is a balance in him, maybe in us all.

And maybe that's why,
in just the right light

at just the right angle

on a good day

I can see echoes of beauty in myself

(but then a slight shift of the protons and neutrons 

and the illusion dissipates).
But I've chosen to pretend I'm beautiful anyway,

which propels me to imagine great things -

or maybe not lofty things,
but dirty, glorious things,

and sweet, strange things -

and to believe that what I have to say matters.