Freehand

When I was a kid I made art like a hurricane
but these days it just falls past my lips
like the shells of dead beetles.
I paint stick figures on bar napkins,
blow lopsided smoke-rings,
and write the same damn haiku a hundred times.
I push it out of me and hope it glows:
stand up Pinnochio, you’re a real boy,
but hours later I can see his paint peeling
and his eyes rolling back to stare hard
at the inside of his boring, wooden head.
I want art to move on its own.
I want it to pull me from Saturday morning sheets
with an eager tug on my sleeve,
point to the fresh snow
that blessed us in our sleep
and say “Look –
look what I have brought you.
The world is diamond clay,
now fashion me a David.”
I want it to stop me mid-sentence
with a beat I can’t but help but drum,
a rhythm in my brain like a worm
in a sombrero who’s busting out
no matter how solemn the funeral.
I want it to interrupt class like the Kool-Aid man
with a big “OH YEAH” as he bows his head
and fills the room with sloshy, red finger paint.
I want it to climb the sides of buildings like kudzu,
hijack antennas and beam opera into space.
I want it to blow through trees like wind
and make paper airplanes out of maple leaves.
I want it to animate books
and let them loose over cities,
clouds of dusty moths pouring
thick from library doors,
fluttering high around street lights
till kids catch them with nets.
I want it to flower in the lines
of our palms like amaryllis,
bloom on the headboards of nursing homes
and leave petals in the sheets.

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© Some rights reserved. “In the Lines of Our Palms” is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Jimmy Pianka is a college kid who studies brains and occasionally writes poems. He is about to spend a semester abroad in the Himalayas, and hopes to one day find employment in the middle-ground between scuba instructor and politician.