a heart that beats for love alone

It's not a star, it's not a fish,

it's not the missing link,

it's just the heart of love's salvation,

vitrified in pink.


A heart that beats for love alone
is easily deceived,
the lonely bear the burden,
if the dead can be believed.


Every object ever made
will crumble into dust,
we consecrate the darkness,
but our hearts will not combust.


Silence was our first defense,
we never said a word,
we slipped into a lucid dream,
our sad confessions slurred.


You held us in the clear and present danger
of your gaze,
we’re tired of the beauty of infinity
these days.


At night we shun the crescent moon
and all her doubtful scars,
above us, there are cold machines
adrift among the stars.


The constellations crowd the sky,
the moon reflects the light,
the eye that sheds a million tears
see shadows in the night.


The ghost of something mythical
escaped into the sea,
it bred its local population
exponentially.


It’s not a star, it’s not a fish,
it’s not a missing link,
it’s just the heart of love’s salvation,
vitrified in pink.


Coral grows on everything,
it blunts our perfect teeth,
squint, and you will recognize
the scaffolding beneath.


I wrote a letter to the king,
I licked the stamp and ran,
I want to be the shadow of
an ordinary man.


We curl inside our spiral shells,
our bodies soft and pink,
wither me with random words,
I’m smaller than you think.


Death comes in and flips a coin,
it glitters in the sun,
he winnows every fairy tale of darkness
down to one.


Sleep with me beneath the moon,
enveloped and afraid,
we’ll slide our fingers slowly down
the moon’s unblemished blade.


Resurrect the sleeping dead
and hold them in your arms,
immune you are, and ravished by
their incandescent charms.


Fill the empty spaces in your heart
with neon light,
go to bed and burn for ruin,
every single night.


The heart that beats for solid gold
maintains a cool reserve,
the sentimental valentine
is more than we deserve.


Fables are the heart’s reward,
we lived to tell the tale,
how cautious is the demon
in the belly of the whale.


There’s love and death and entropy,
there’s nothing in between,
if you’re the king of all that burns,
then I’m the gasoline.


Find me when the sun goes down,
we’ll dig your muddy grave,
the heart that burns for pleasure
is impossible to save.


Wear a wreath of stolen bones,
remember who you are,
know that you were molten
in the belly of a star.


Stare at death with glowing eyes,
he’s come to lift the veil,
his horse stands lonely by his side,
in moonlit pastures pale.


Curse the dark and fall asleep,
your dreams will fossilize,
you’ll have to learn to live without their wisdom,
otherwise.


Dreams rebuild the tower from a past
that never was,
but love will fade away,
away,
if that’s all dreaming does.


mt forest
January 14 2017
#473

This painting was done from a photograph I took of a giant starfish in Punta Cana.

the eighth circle of hell

My studio, aka 'the 8th circle of hell'.

My studio, aka 'the 8th circle of hell'.

studio c jo forrest 2020

I moved the wire shelf that was in the dining room down into my studio. I need a good clean up down there. I did throw 2 bags of garbage out, so that’s a start.

Studio c jo forrest Aug 27 2020

Just a bit of a mess.

bones don't lie verse:15


Stop
looking through the mirror
into the past.


remorse
is beyond incantation’s power
to mend,
no matter how many goats
you sacrifice
to the god of
vanity.


no surgeon
can exorcise the baited
barbed hooks.


those voices
are sticky,
beyond the reach
of any physicians
steel blade.


you need another kind of
necromancer
for that.


you cover yourself in scars
for the benefit
of strangers,
but I
see
you.


we grew out of adolescence
like swans,
origamied
from plain
white
paper.
but you,
shrunken and hollow,
did not.


no fingers
caressed your
alien
geometry.


you can’t heal
an emotional problem
with a physical solution.


that’s rule number four.


none of us are blind
to euphoria’s
contagion,
except you and your
sequined barbie doll army,
your faces rearranged
into a blank
smiling
anonymity.


blood alone
is not enough
to pay the devil.


I can smell your spitted
and roasting heart
from here,
sweating a clear
oceanic plasma
over white
powdered
embers.


split your tongue
right down the middle,
it won’t stop
the reverberating
echoes.


babe,
we all have
x-ray vision,
and
bones...
don’t
lie.


mt forest
January 24 2015
#322

This image came from a photograph of a deer skull that my friend Ian gave me.  I like skeletons, and bones.  I find them sculptural and beautiful.  I have a small collection of bones of different kinds. 

the never-ending prophecy verse:14

The devil says he’s sorry,
but it doesn’t mean a thing,
you offered him an apple
for a feather from his wing.

A fire burns inside his heart,
a flame that grows and grows,
burning for euphoria
is all he really knows.

You wore the feather in your hat,
your fingers black with soot,
you danced because he asked you to,
a shoe on every foot.

Diamonds glitter in your hair,
you wear your virtue well,
you’re every inch a zipper girl,
as far as I can tell.

Buttons fumble under thumbs,
they just won’t come undone,
the stillness of another day in limbo
has begun.

Love is not the fearless thing
my mother said it was,
it resurrects the constant moon,
as love so often does.

It’s six a.m. in New Orleans,
we stagger home to bed,
our lives are stitched together with
a tangling of thread.

The bed lay at the bottom of
a dark abandoned well,
I rolled your name across my tongue,
preemptively, and fell.

The pillow’s stuffed with ancient dreams,
how easily they die,
if you’re the dreamer’s memory,
then who the hell am I?

Dreams take time to decompose,
there’s more to life than sleep,
the well of all eternity
is lonely, dark and deep.

I love your black cosmology,
the starlight in your eye,
rainbows hang like angels in
a pyrotechnic sky.

Anyone can disconnect,
I did it every day,
I pulled the plug and watched the fractal image
fade away.

Anything can be undone
but dreams you can’t defend,
find the crooked ladder to the bottom,
and descend.

I dropped a pin and waited for
the echo of the sound,
your milky bones abandoned
on the unforgiving ground.

We sheltered from the fire
in the shadow of his wing,
completely covered, head to toe,
though vanity is king.

The shroud that wrapped around us was
a clammy uniform,
the pleasant conversation was
the calm before the storm.

We shed our skins and went to Paris,
waiting to receive,
there are no upper limits to
the things we won’t believe.

The man who stole the microphone
complained incessantly,
he seems completely innocent of sanity
to me.

Power is contagious,
it’s the pain we can’t endure,
the man who brought us fire
thinks the devil’s heart is pure.

Death removed his velvet gloves,
a specter at the feast,
panic is contagious
in the belly of the beast.

He says the word ‘forgettable’,
he wipes the future clean,
love is just the shadow of
the silence in between.

The firewalker talks about
the beauty and the light,
his body glows like neon
in the bowels of the night.

I followed in the footsteps of his ghost,
on high alert,
he looks a bit like Elvis in a pink
Hawaiian shirt.

I paid for my vacation with
a pocketful of change,
it’s helpful to remember that
the human heart is strange.

There is no end to gravity,
your heart’s a little worn,
the child of eternity
remembers being born.

The world spins in the black abyss,
it’s what we bargained for,
I don’t know how the memory of dust
could haunt me more.

Our dreams are psychedelic,
so we never dream alone,
the darkness is the only thing
the world has ever known.

I watched as something burning fell
across the crimson sky,
there’s more to satan’s version of events,
than meets the eye.

It left a kind of mushroom cloud of
interstellar dust,
the remnants of its prophecy
embedded in the crust.

We chart its cold trajectory,
as passion often does,
as ever, it will be the frozen moon
it always was.

As for me, I’m not a fool,
I’ve seen the way you dance,
you waltz right past me every time,
without a second glance.

You dream about eternity
inside your padded cell,
serpent, with your shrouded heart in pain,
I know you well.

The floors have doors that lead to hell,
I’m bruised from falling in,
speak, and our entanglement of sorrow
will begin.

Kiss the child innocent,
and leave her in her bed,
hover over every steeple,
luminous and red.

The sky is grey with tattered clouds,
I’m starting the descent,
is this the way the demon with his wings of fire
went?

Angels plant their random seeds
on bare unfurrowed ground,
I dreamt I was your heart’s desire,
gloriously crowned.

The light was made to guide the world
from darkness into flame,
strike the match and set the world on fire
in my name.

I have no other weapon than
the one that dulls the blade,
I bleed because you tell me to,
but I am not afraid.


mt forest
January 31 and March 19 ‘17
#477

mechanical failure verse:11


Beyond superstition lies absolute silence,
I’ve been there and back, so I know,
the world is divided by lies of omission,
you’d leave, but there’s nowhere to go.


Inside us are elements fusing together,
it’s helium, learning to dance,
your brain misinterprets the heat from the fire
as love’s subatomic romance.


Obsession depends on the art of remembrance,
you can’t close the door on the dead,
their voices continue to ask for forgiveness,
leaving their bones in your bed.


The moment you stop looking over your shoulder,
you’ll feel something break in your heart,
the fragments of glass will cut through to the surface,
you’ll bleed, as the world falls apart.


Your tongue is entangled in too many vowels,
you’re stumbling naked through time,
the stairway to heaven is under construction,
you’re gasping for breath as you climb.


You said there was gold at the end of the rainbow,
you’re counting on luck to provide,
the gap between having enough to be happy or not,
is too small to divide.


You’d eat, if the tree bore the fruit of temptation,
you’d drink, if the clouds would descend,
you’d make a machine that would burn with desire,
but we’re all missing parts, in the end.


Invisible objects control our emotions
in ways that are hard to explain,
they linger like ghosts at the edge of perception,
their love’s an indelible stain.


We cover the mirrors to hide our expressions,
our faces as blank as a wall,
we would experience hours of pleasure,
if we could see beauty at all.


We made something new from the ashes of reason,
the smoke makes us cough ‘til we’re blue,
we dream about living in circular houses,
we’re mad that they never come true.


Demonic possession turns toys into monsters,
they smile, and burst into flame,
they’re monomaniacal angels of vengeance
with long unpronounceable names.


I swept up the ashes, and focused on dinner,
I looked for the corkscrew in vain,
the half-eaten cake, and the chalice of blood on the counter,
are hard to explain.


The cake was a symptom of too many birthdays,
the candles took days to blow out,
I have to admit that the animal sacrifice
gave me a moment of doubt.


The chalice was made from the skull of a raven,
the blood was a gift from the gods,
you serve it with sugar, and two fluid ounces of water,
and cardamom pods.


The clock won’t stop talking about its religion,
it sings to the moon every night,
the moon howls back with its own wild chorus,
screaming with pagan delight.


Mechanical failure is part of the problem,
dust takes its toll on the gears,
achieving the delicate balance of movement and stillness,
takes thousands of years.


Salvador Dali said art was a virgin,
a cold disassembled machine,
whether or not we’ll decipher the language of eros,
remains to be seen.

This image came from a photograph of a broken doll I found on the internet.  I normally like to work from my own photographs, but that's not always possible, and this one was so perfect I had to use it.  This was painted for an art auction at the Lindsay Gallery, but I couldn't bear to be without it, so I bought it back.  I have a hard time selling my work.  I'm o.k. giving them to my friends, because I know I'll see them again.


mt forest
November 19 2014
#291

the oracle of pain verse:6


You keep your sacred objects in
an empty mason jar,
you think that you’re anonymous,
but we know who you are.


My horoscope was written by
the oracle of pain,
though our bodies decompose,
our gilded hearts remain.


It’s hard to blame the oracle
for every dream come true,
I’d explain my version of events,
if I were you.


Death, he said, won’t hesitate
to cut you down like wheat,
a harvest of remembrance for
the carnivores to eat.


Life, he said, is missing something;
everybody knows,
it’s hard to live without a moral compass,
I suppose.


The oracle said panic was
a lily dipped in gold,
the tears of birds with scarlet eyes,
condensing in the cold.


Fame is like a garden where the weed
outshines the rose,
a bed of dark pathology,
where any flower grows.


Love is like an animal
that eats its young alive,
only those without remorse
are destined to survive.


Memories and dreams become entangled
in your sleep,
they grow like coral on the shrouded bodies
in the deep.


We lost the keys to paradise,
we broke the crystal balls,
we kept the bloody carving knives,
embedded in the walls.

We asked the god of famine to

regurgitate the bones,

he said we'd find them underneath

a pyramid of stones.


The oracle had mirrors that
distorted time and space,
bones, he said, are like the architecture
of the face.


I bring him tea and opium,
he watches as I pour,
the past, he said, is harder to remember
than before.


Time, he said, is measured by
the phases of the moon,
sure, I said, and drank the tea,
and stole the silver spoon.


We argued over water as
the house was burning down,
I wore a nest of intertwining serpents
as a crown.


He said he saw the face of satan
carved in human bone,
if I was him, and he was me,
we’d never be alone.


We played a game with tarot cards,
he wore a crown of stars,
I bet him my immortal soul
against his mason jars.


Even though I had a king,
I played the queen of hearts,
history is written by
the keeper of the charts.

mt forest

August 24 2013

#211

mobius verse:10


I drove through Kapuskasing
with a zombie in the trunk,
I found him in a topless bar,
pretending to be drunk.


I drove through Kapuskasing
with my phasers set to stun,
there’s nothing so insidious
as turning into one.


I drove through Kapuskasing
in a stolen chevrolet,
I remember deja vu
like it was yesterday.


I drove through Kapuskasing
to avoid the third world war,
exuding toxic chemicals
from every single pore.


I drove through Kapuskasing
with a man named Oberon,
he said to put the hammer down,
and baby, I was gone.


I drove through Kapuskasing
with a suitcase full of gold,
shivering a little
in this f-f-frigging cold.


I drove through Kapuskasing
with a bottle in my hand,
bowing to temptation
in this never-never land.


I drove through Kapuskasing
in an alcoholic haze,
glowing like a firefly
in oh so many ways.


I drove through Kapuskasing
in a diamond-studded bra,
the devil gave me apples,
but that’s not against the law.


I drove through Kapuskasing,
my virginity intact,
the thin veneer of purity,
ever so slightly cracked.


I drove through Kapuskasing
with a map to paradise,
the devil gives directions,
but you have to pay the price.


I drove through Kapuskasing
for the twenty-seventh time,
the bobble-headed Elvis
was as silent as a mime.


I drove through Kapuskasing
with a rose between my teeth,
I stripped the skin from beauty
to reveal the bones beneath.


I drove through Kapuskasing
past the point of no return,
I whacked him with a cricket bat,
but zombies never learn.


mt forest
August 2013
#208

tidal to the moon verse:13


The pencil-pushers wipe their hands
across their crimson lips,
they lick the blood of angels
from their sticky fingertips.


They stare at you with vacant eyes
that never seem to blink,
they sign their names in triplicate,
and teeter on the brink.


The fashionistas call their friends
a hundred times a day,
they stammer their desires,
since they don’t know what to say.


They sleep in beds they make themselves,
the sheets are clean, but torn,
they prick their fingers bloody
on the sharp ecstatic thorn.


The clock controls their every move,
they curse its fluid name,
they metronome their beating hearts,
but every day’s the same.


Their rhythms are predictable,
they’re tidal to the moon,
they stagger down the street like zombies,
singing sorrow’s tune.


Chaos is their only answer,
(winter’s charms aside),
they use the ancient art of exhumation
as their guide.


They fill the empty spaces in their lives
with lemon tea,
glasses smudged with fingerprints
make beauty hard to see.


They weave their spells from sticky threads,
it’s all they have of love,
ouija boards and voodoo dolls
is what they’re dying of.


They paint the town on Friday nights,
the music never ends,
they bind their hands, with comical results,
and curse their friends.


Their hearts believe in magic,
they’re a generation lost,
their pencils dull with adding up
the night’s elusive cost.


The pencil-pushers love their dolls
in every shape and size,
the flames of love’s desires lost
lie dormant in their eyes.


Their waiters bring them watermelon
laced with alcohol,
the chances of them ever going home
are very small.


They’re autobiographical,
convincingly direct,
they’d love to dance the tango,
but they just can’t stand erect.


They take their time with everything,
they can’t afford mistakes,
as fragile as existence is,
it’s only bone that breaks.


Ribs protrude at angles odd,
opaque beneath the skin,
fruit lies rotten on the ground,
they eat, but still, they’re thin.


They tell their tales in monotone,
but no one knows the truth,
they crunch the bones of nameless wingless birds,
and break a tooth.


Their glasses fog with every breath,
they curse their vanity,
the surface rust of glitter makes
their faces hard to see.


They wax their legs and burn their bras,
they dream, because they can,
they said I was a fount of information,
for a man.


Their constant chatter makes me sad,
they sing like dying whales,
they chase the sun across the moon,
but beauty always fails.


The undertakers wears a hat,
his cheeks are powdered pink,
desire makes the organ of eternal darkness
shrink.


They add inflation to the list,
then multiply by two,
when summer came, the scattered seeds
of yellow roses grew.


My fingers moved so fast that I
could not control their art,
silver thread and golden needles
stitched the devil’s heart.


I drew a face, then crossed it out,
it never comes out right,
maybe I’m the one who needs
the mirror’s moonlit night.


I drew a face as pale as death,
it always looks the same,
the architecture underneath the flesh
is not to blame.


Maybe it’s geometry, or maybe it’s just
bone,
the heart that never sheds a drop of blood,
cannot be sewn.


mt forest

July 21 2015

#374

anchor #185


She moves like the world leans hard to the right,
a ship on a circular sea,
she's chained to the memory shrouded in mist,
the blood-red desire, and me.


Her voice is a reptile shedding its skin,
a bird in a rib cage of gold,
she makes a sound like a tick-tocking clock,
as the memories around her unfold.


She slept with her head at the foot of the bed,
her dreams lost their way in the dark,
they wandered around the bedroom at night,
erasing the day's gilded mark.


She's hidden the past in a small wooden box,
it's empty, except for a key,
it opens the door to a room full of mirrors,
tilting precariously.


There's a stone on her grave in the shape of a heart
from the land of the long white cloud,
I can hear her whispering fragmented words,
wrapped in the earth's muddy shroud.


She rides a black horse through the fires of hell,
the devil is calling her name,
her heart is a prisoner tied to a stake,
burning alive in the flame.


She moves like the world leans hard to the left,
her bones tumble out of her grave,
they dance with the devil on seven-inch heels,
since this is how bad bones behave.


The world spins around like a merry-go-round,
it's hard to stand up at the poles,
I'm waiting for all of the bones to come up
from their luminous underground holes.

 

mt forest.

 

This poem was inspired by my mother, Trudy Small, a fantastic artist.  I was with her when she was having a stroke, but I didn't recognize the symptoms, until they were too obvious to miss.   We'd been out for a walk in the village, and she was having real problems walking.  Then she started to lean to the left, then she seemed o.k. when I finally got her home.  After dinner, I went into the kitchen for 1 minute to get some blackberries and ice cream for dessert, and when I came back, she was lying on the floor.  She looked comfortable, like she'd just decided to lie on the carpet for a nap, but when Dad and I picked her up, it was obvious, finally, what had happened.  She passed away 4 years later.  In the painting, she's "dancing with the devil on seven-inch heels, since this is how bad bones behave".  She had a slightly wicked sense of humor, and if anyone would do something like this, it would be her.  The stone on her grave from the land of the long white cloud, is a heart-shaped stone from New Zealand.  Because her left side was weak, and the bedroom was too small to move the bed to another position, she slept with the pillow at the foot of the bed, to make it easier for her to get in and out of bed.  When I start a poem, I have no idea what it's going to be about, or where it's going to end up.  The nightgown was made by stenciling paint through an old lace curtain.

This is the whole painting, with the text.

This is the beginning of the image. 

dancing skeleton bag copyright jo forrest 2020

I made some labels for these Halloween treat bags from the dancing skeleton painting. It was fun to do.