All Those Beautiful Places (Day 424)

I was there when 

that small warm bundle 

called life dangled limply 

in your arms a load of laundry 

bound for the line or a chilly 

expression of reticence on 

a face once generous 

as grandma’s whipped-cream 

fudge and fresh-from-the-garden 

berries served sunwarm with 

our breakfast every morning 

the artist doesn’t tell she shows
and deserves a snap of the fingers 
for all those beautiful places 

where magically even when 

there is no peace

there is still love

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

Black Coffee in Handpainted Mug (Day 393)

too bitter 

to ignore 

the purr it 

releases  finding 

purchase on 

the porcelain 

glaze  cobalt 

perfection  

devoid of 

the grit and 

fingerprints 

one might expect 

on an everyday

object made 

of clay intricately 

painted by a 

tired-eyed woman 

in a dusty 

crowded room

so far away 

I cannot begin 

to imagine 

the language

she speaks

in her dreams.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

The Painter (Day 392)

summer’s verdant, musky vines 

painter consumed by her canvas

wildflower ghosts of spring

in a frigid, well-lit space

mushroom-colored, winter day

brushes slay dragons of gloom

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Helen Galloway McNicoll, The Apple Gatherer (c. 1900), oil on canvas

Watercolors (Day 390)

Where the edges

are not, there now

twist and turn, into cavernous

echoing chambers, bleeding

rivulets of umber diverging into

creases that vein the vast,

opaline expanse of 

love’s cold, hard floor,

over which we slipped and

ran, laughing until we cried, our

seawater tears blooming like watercolors.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: JMW Turner, Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire, England (ca. 1834), 
watercolor, Cinninnati Art Museum (via Wikimedia)

Making art (Day 342)

Making lingering art

a public dream 

of dark bars and 

coffeeshops

sleeping ghosts and 

mystical gifts. 

The fine raw 

humming energy 

arising from 

the work itself 

rewarding 

the fatal selfishness 

of creating  

of giving  

and the unexpectedly 

selfless grace 

of taking 

time and energy 

to receive 

the finished work. 

Without the one

the other would fail.

Without the other

the one would 

never have been.  

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Pot Pourri, 1897 (oil on canvas) 

by Herbert James Draper; private collection

via Wikimedia Commons