Life Lost and Dreams Forgotten - 30 x 24 oil on canvas
 
Sexagenarian Man sits without artifice to judge the essence of his past life in a series of visual metaphors. The foundation of his musings is a beautiful park of trees and water accompanied by an eroded desert landscape.
Forget-me-not flowers grow nearby expressing his hope that his legacy will survive.  Bees suggest that some events remembered might have a sting.
He is reminded of his intellectual achievements by The Tree of Knowledge growing in the park, and by how much he has forgotten. The Magnifying Glass of Curiosity is at the heart of the tree. The lens is fractured, signifying its diminishing function as Sexagenarian Man ages. He still longs to understand The Universe, but receiving answers to his questions no longer seems critical. 
Two fighting stallions in the park represent his youthful competitive sparing with his peers, and the possible harm that might have come from it.
A bull charging a startled Grim Reaper is reminiscent of Sexagenarian Man’s defiance of death through careless activities of youthful bravado. In addition, a man sportingly surfs down a lava flow. He remembers peers who lost their battle with death and consequently lost the greater part of their lives.
A volcano portrays his past fiery ambition and creative drive. It generates new worlds that precariously float towards a threatening thunderhead coming from behind the desert hills. The storm represents social obstacles that hindered his welfare and success such as prejudice, defamation, deceit, and perverse changes in the mores of society. Waiting to strike, The Snake of Evil depicts sociopolitical discord and violence.
A rock climber scaling the thorn bush-covered hills represents personal traits that occasionally hampered his progress, such as illness, defeatism, regret, and apathy. He overcame these weaknesses, but fears they might resurface with time.
A stream flows from a cave at the base of the desert hills to nourish a rebirth of the park. In the stream stands a quiescent pregnant woman who represents Sexagenarian Man’s paternal procreative yearnings. Has his instinctive drive been fulfilled?
Farther downstream a nude woman poses seductively while she gives a challenging stare. She represents his mating endeavors. Thistles that bloom at her feet signify the difficulties that romantic relationships create.
Beside a small waterfall, The Sands of Time fall in an hourglass pattern. The resultant mound of expired time pushes aside The Egg of New Beginnings. Perched on a stem of foxglove in the foreground, a frantic raven caws a warning.
The stone outcropping over which the park water flows has a face and hand pointing scrutinizingly at Sexagenarian Man. He is fully responsible for much of what he sees. Do his memories reflect a life fulfilled – one where he enjoyed all that was achievable?
Excalibur, King Arthur’s sword of valor, hovers over a spherical stone from which the sword was drawn. For him, the sword represents ethical fervor and idealism. The stone represents honesty and justice. Were these personal principles realized?
Sexagenarian Man’s life has changed over time and the activities and dreams of his youth have been lost or forgotten. He realizes he is a different man and must accept a past of accomplishment and mishap as it unfolded. For him to return for continuation or reparation is not possible. Do his memories leave him with an overall feeling of peaceful satisfaction?  What more might he do in the future?  How will he be remembered?
 

Old Heart - 18 x 24 oil on canvas
 
My old heart cries for youth,
for young romance and an eternal future.
My old heart cries for you
with a growing ache and no hope for cure.
 
I fatigue with loneliness
and bittersweet memories.
I confound myself with foolish
old heart idiosyncrasies.
 
You are gone.  I am lost.
There’s no more I can do.
My old heart beats on
reluctantly without you.
​

Melting Man -   24 x 48  oil on canvas
 
You weren’t bestowed the wings of flight,
and had to crawl through dirt and stone.
Well, I too have known the rugged path,
so, don’t believe you’ve been alone.
 
You say you could have been renowned,
and scold me with vindictive ire.
We all have dreamt of eminence,
only to melt within the fire.

Gift of the Smoke Spirit – 40 x 30 oil on canvas
 
One evening when the festive court assembled for a meal
the Smoke Spirit left a sapphire stone in recognition of love’s appeal.
The people gathered around the gem as it rested in a bowl            
and their greed became so sinister it was beyond each one’s control.
Mia thought it was a gift for her; she was the most beautiful, of course.
Count Rolf thought it was meant for him to buy a champion horse.
Ann’s jealousy churned her blood. She believed herself deserving.
She always showed The Count respect and it was him she was just then serving.
Baron Roy felt it was finally time he was rewarded for his labor,
and frowned coldly at the pretentious count with a hand upon his saber.
The Smoke Spirit saw their envy grow and judged each one a fool,
so, she bid the nearby fire to blaze and incinerate the jewel.
​

Autumn Air – oil on canvas
 
The autumn air, borne of a blue sky torn with clouds,
carries colors of yellow, red, and brown.
The autumn ground moves as nature blows these shed colors to-and-fro
as if rabbits chased by a howling hound.
My autumn thoughts drift in the warmth to be dispersed
by the relentlessness of time and fate.
Whisper to me, nymphs of song. Gift me with your wisdom.
I have naught to do but dream and wait.
​

Leafy Sky –  18 x 24  oil on canvas
 
It’s an auspicious day for the tree leaves:
Walnut, elm, and oak.
“To what yard are you heading?
Beware all piles that smoke!”
 
Bare branches scratch the sky ‘til raw.
Maple, plum, and birch
all spin in autumn air
during their random search.
 
The calm of evening finally comes.
Hickories and willows.
All find their final resting spots,
and serve animals as pillows.
 
Leaflets of locusts fill small cracks.
Sycamores, large spaces.
Poplar leaves shine bright yellow,
and all – the snow erases.

Night Runner – 16 x 20 oil on canvas
 
Through the night I run.
Haunted by memories feeding anxieties.
Through the darkness I pound my feet
fleeing ghosts of demonic varieties.
 
Faster, faster I must run,
stumbling, then forcing recovery.
My heart tears vessels with its bursting beats.
Through woods and brambles, I fight discovery.

Alone and Enduring the Raven Sun           36 x 30 oil on canvas
 
Oh, fiery ball, tame yourself.  Roll away from me despite the raven’s call.
What more pain can a solitary man endure?  Why must every city fall?
The sea is now a pond, a tree is but a leaf. 
A ship sails in desert winds and sinks slowly in grains of grief.
Hear my footfalls as I search for answers that seem impossible to find.
Withhold your burning heat before you consume my mind.

Mosquito – 12 x 24  oil on canvas
  
The mosquito, with stubbornness,
ignored the supernova.
Its enormity, too incomprehensible.
Its rage, too threatening.

And the supernova,
with natural unawareness,
had little choice but to incinerate;
obliterate,
the ignorant speck.

Human consciousness and intellect evolve from our sensuality and figuratively from the heart.  Human intellectualism (represented by the blue spheres) endures on an individual basis, but it eventually fails when institutionalized. 
 
Journey of Man
 
The Universe burns and the galaxies spin,
while the planets determine what’s living therein.
And we living must work and if possible, thrive,
and through loving and giving we will know we’re alive.
Still we never can know what life will demand
but, we can always be sure of the Journey of Man.
​

The Stone Pullers – 24 x 18 oil on canvas
 
Why are these people pulling a heavy stone through the hot desert?  Does it have value to them?  Are the ravens scolding them for their theft?
 
Or are they pulling the heavy stone as a form of punishment?  Is it a product of a mutual transgression on their part, and are the ravens cawing scorn at them as they labor?
​

This painting is entitled: 'The mass of men...', which might seem strange considering there is only one man in it. The title is the beginning of a comment by Henry David Thoreau: "The mass of men lead[s] lives of quiet desperation."
 
The mass of men…           24 x 36 oil on canvas
        
While the darkness creeps up behind me I, alone and lonely, search for a few words, a small piece of salvation, that might be hidden in my mailbox.  Empty again.  Has my road been forgotten?  My house thought to be vacant?
​

Swallowed by Time – 16 x 20 oil on canvas
 
Silence, oh raven!  I know that the bats of time will once again swarm about me this night. I feel the eroded crevasses open beneath me.  I grasp a vine for rescue, but it stings and bites me and lets loose its roots.  Alas, the rose of beauty has become a thorn bush releasing my blood to the soil, so what more is there to life?  I am being swallowed by time as is eternity itself.  
​

White Feather – 16 x 20 oil on canvas
 
From out of the blue, you fall into hand,
a message of scorn and self-righteous demand.
Oblivious to need and men’s states of affair,
your delivering birds distribute nightmare.
 
They fly down the street with a bustling aim
to hand out their quills and thus unload their shame.
And after delivering each stabbing decree,
they find a sweet shop for crumpets and tea.
​

The New Arrivals – 24 x 12 oil on canvas
 A couple witnesses the arrival of two people into the underworld.  They arrive via Charon’s boat as he navigates it along the river Styx, which carries people from the living world into Hades.

What’d You Say? – 16x20 oil on canvas
 
Come over here!
What’d you say?
No one talks to me that way!
 
Don’t smirk at me.
You’d best realize.
You can’t escape these blue eyes!

A Woman’s Journey – 48 x 36 oil on mahogany board
 
Time swirls around an infant as she sleeps with an eternity ahead of her. 
 
Soon, she is a little girl picking flowers and discovering nature.  The world is the yard within her parents’ fence, and occasionally, her school, or the grocery store.
 
In a few years she discovers romance and her own beauty.  It is a power that makes her proud, yet scares her.  Will she ever be accepted by a man of her desires?
 
Yes, she is, and she becomes loved and cherished.  Eventually, she holds within her body a new life to begin the cycle again.
 
The child is born and becomes the center of her world, but he moves out to find his own woman, leaving his mother behind in a home that he will always remember.
 
Now middle-aged, she dons her nightgown, and takes her tea to her chair.  Life is peaceful, but touched with worries.  Is he alright?
 
And then, before she realizes it, the days have passed, she is alone and carrying a cane.  What has happened?  It has been 30,000 days since she sucked her thumb.  Could all those days really have been lived?  

Philosophy is often presented as a stoic, formulaic study of human thought, ethics, and our place in The Universe.  This Phantasmagoria painting and poem coupling is a surrealistic depiction of the true emotional philosophical processes that occur in the depths of the human mind.  We might try to adhere to logical courses of thought and action, but our emotions and desires often cause us to surge this way and that as we struggle to embrace our humanity and the short lives we experience.
 
Phantasmagoria – 16 x 20 oil on canvas
 
Drift peacefully amidst deep ethereal thoughts of tangled wonder.  
Float as twilight specters breathing whispers in the shadows.                
Scream when burned by flames of desperate weeping chaos.               
Embrace tenderly romantic cues in purple passion meadows.     
 
Quiet breaths when grasped by icy fear and seething sweating fever.   
Fight valiantly mediocracy with unchained raging anger.  
Love madly with the power to storm thunderously into calmness.    
Smile kindly upon the small and meek, especially when a stranger. 
 
Mourn silently true love’s loss, while scrutinizing storm clouds for auspicious skies. 
Growl with indefatigable anguish until righteousness profusely blossoms for all eyes.
 
Sing melodiously with ecstatic love when touched by sensual fascination.  
Breathe deeply aromatic air from eternal worlds of intense imagination.
 
Fly deftly with the rebellious raven when energetic, young, and bold.
Dream joyously with the cooing dove once life’s triumphs are manifold.    

Fleas of Profundity – 30 x 40 oil on canvas
 
We sail the vast ocean of life, enduring storms and riding swells like tiny fleas.  We first boldly challenge our fate, and then scream in terror when we are about to be swallowed by reality.  We forge towards danger with the desire to accomplish or to discover something deeply moving and meaningful: something profound.   But what is truly profound to a flea?  The richness of the world or the vastness of The Universe?  Despite their impressiveness, they are not inherently meaningful, and these wonders were not created by us, we can barely intersect with them with our minimalistic senses.  We have built impressive structures and institutions, but they are profound only because of our relative insignificance, our limited comprehension of true complexity, and our flea-like essence. Perhaps profundity may be found in beauty.  Perhaps, through love.  Perhaps, most of all, through charity.  We each, upon taking our final breaths, will finally know the answer, because at that time all artifice will have been stripped away and we will most accurately weigh the value of life.  
​

Men of Fire – 18 x 24 -oil on canvas
 
We are young Men of Fire
with blazes fierce, but roars unheard.
Within our walls, we voice our stress
incinerating desperate words.
Our hot blood droplets
roll downwards tracking
paths once salted with lesser tears.
Our bodies strong, succumb to weakness
when no one else will know our fears.
 
We are young Men of Fire,
with lungs torn raw and hearts beat blue.
Our thoughts of dark days dawning haunt us.
Our crying minds sweat anguish cruel.
Juggernauts of peaceless
Angst we fall fatigued
to find dark nightmare.
Yet, with body new, we rise again.
Tranquil souls blink not, ---beware.
 
We are young Men of Fire,
of solemn truths and potent cause.
We seek out nights where shadows darken,
where laughter’s loud and discord’s raw.
Turning from the muskiness
of silent meek filled deep with dread,
we weep alone.
With roughened fists, we pound our heads,
despairing for the broken stone.
 
 
Why are we here?
Why do we breathe?
To wake the languid fools who sleep?
No-
No-
Such repose soothes minds unburned.
We lust to grasp a calm so deep.
Nevertheless!
Nevertheless.
We are young Men of Fire.

Who whispers there?
You’re not our friends.
Give us the peace
of normal men.
 
Twilight specters spoil the night,
while mist obscures tomorrow.
Our rage sustains us lest we melt
to formless mounds of sorrow.
 
We meet the world in many ways,
we men of dreams and energy.
Some ignite and turn to ash,
some smolder for infinity,
some burn whomever they might choose
through jealousy and enmity,
and some---
some bold Men of Fire,
fuel the flames that illuminate
a future of sanguinity.
 

Extremist Stew – 28 x 22 oil on canvas

‘Round and ‘round we steam and scream with onions and salty vegetables.
Wide-eyed we boil and shout out hate,  then cry a bit for seasoning.
Imparting flavors to the stew we ruin the final recipe.
Come smell and taste our sour blend, gobble-up our poisonous reasoning.

​Endless Day – 48 x 36 acrylic and oil on canvas
 
When walking on a beautiful warm day, I often ponder that there are many things we experience today that have not changed from ancient times: beautiful skies, trees, boats on the water, a warm sun in the sky, etc. Our ancestors experienced many of the blissful feelings we enjoy today.  As we walk, we can be forgiven for imagining the day will never end, just as the ancient Greeks might have imagined over 2600 years ago, but it does and the following days also keep spinning by like gusts of breeze through the dust.  These thoughts inspired this painting.  The immortal Greek gods in the sky languidly look down from their casual repasts and enjoy the eternal beauty without having to come to terms with the day’s ephemeral essence.  Nevertheless, beauty survives, and the briefness of our strolls sometimes makes them all the more cherished.

Through the Fence – 16 x 20 oil on canvas
 
You’ve found privacy and “independence” behind your wooden fence.
You manage a perfect garden and a stoic commonsense,
but when hidden from the world and its scary social stress        
your solitude is but boredom and painful loneliness.
When your pond has dried in the sun and your flowers all have withered, 
peek outside your aging fence from where sad hours have slithered.
Unlock your gate and open wide its frame of creaky hinges
and find that you just might enjoy humanity’s wild fringes.
​

Lastnight, Midnight – 20 x 16 oil on canvas
 
Lastnight, midnight, I tangled my hair
in the fires of the atmosphere.
 
I was hurled by currents that blistered my face,
and then—whipped free, towards the cold blackened space.
 
In shock, I was throbbing in shivering fate.
Yet, I rotated my mind back towards the hate.
 
But, the whole world of homes, (All the people were singing),
was brilliant with color, (in the sounds of bell ringing).
 
Why did this happen, I being torn from the scenes?
They were entwined with their living, and I – tangled in dreams.
 

Today, Midday – 20 x 16 oil on canvas
 
Today, midday, I tangled my mind
in thoughts of despair that drove me half blind.
 
I was hurled by currents that wrinkled my face,
and then—whipped free towards an infinite space.
 
In shock, I was rendered dumfounded and still.
Yet, I rotated myself with strong effort and will.
 
But, the whole world of hope, (All the people were singing),
was brilliant with smiles, (in the sounds of bell ringing).
 
Why did this happen, I being torn from my home? 
They were embraced with love giving, and I  -- sleeping alone.
​

Black Moon Sunrise – 24 x 18 oil on canvas
 
Black moon, charred by the sun,
whisper your secret tale.
Defy the fire and rise above me
so we may each prevail.
 
My eyes, seared by the flames,
search for reprieve from light,
but your dark face casts cool upon me
and promises rest tonight.
 

Full Moon Nightfall – 24 x 18 oil on canvas
 
Full moon, lighting the night,
thank-you for your bright glow.
Burn through the night and own the dark sky.
Cast long my moon shadow.
 
My face, brushed by the clouds,
turns towards your guiding way.
Rise high and burst through your blankets.
Be proud of your display.
​

Night Approaches – 20 x 24 oil on canvas
 
How fleeting the colors of the sky and the birds that grace its breezes.
How brief the warmth of the sun and the flower whose bright hue pleases.
Goodbye to handsome men on horseback and ladies riding in fancy coaches.
These farewells must be said every day, alas because a dark night approaches.
​

Red at Night – 20 X 24 oil on canvas
 
Red at night, a sailor’s delight.
Red in morning, a sailor’s warning. 
Let’s sleep well tonight fore the sky has graced us.
Woe! Yesterday, fore the storm had chased us.
 
We’ll keep the sails taught and the stern behind us,
before dark clouds can form and find us.
Bow toward our goal, men renew your strength,
because we are bound to endure, and conquer at length.
​

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