Some of us just can't help ourselves—a little warmth, and we're goners.

Oil on canvas, 38 x 41"

Its at about this point that people start telling the painting looks done to them. Although I see about two or three more applications of paint. Usually I have a title for my image by now. This time I'm just beginning.

My choices so far come from poet Stephen Dunn:

• I fell backward into the world.
• what feels good feels good
• Some of us just can't help ourselves—a little warmth, and we're goners.
• thw whole world up above diving for it
• Geese have just flown over. I hope they are going to Saskatoon.
• I've mastered the language of intimacy in order to conceal how I felt—
• I knew I was in danger of being terribly understood.

You can see the painting progression at this link

It seems to me that many of the poems in his book Falling Backwards into the World are thinly veiled metaphors for infidelity.

Here are the poems these lines inhabit.

Ars Poetica

For a while I climbed the ladder,
not realizing I'd placed it
against the wrong house. The window
I tried to look into was a mirror.
I fell backward into the world.

Crocus Explains

I remember a few March afternoons
when I thought I was in the presence
of God—beneficence one moment,
a sudden disappearance the next.
But what feels good feels good
is one of those thruisms I rise to.
When touched just right,
I've been known to risk everything.
Yes, I've often mistaken a hint
for a promis, but so be it.
Otherwise I'd be a perpetual
stay-at-home, forever waiting
for a sign that says, "It's safe now."
Some of us just can't help ourselves—
a little warmth, and we're goners.

Homage to the Divers

A love poem at the bottom
of the sea, in a treasure ship,
reachable, yes,
we must believe reachable.
In an air-tight container
somewhere in the aptain's quarters
somewhere off Hatteras,
written by...
And a key in a skeleton's hand
and the whole world up above
diving for it,
some with all the equipment,
some holding their breath.

Nova Scotia Chronolog #3

The jackpines in the distance
may be firs
for all I know.
But I make them jackpines
because my mouth feels wonderful pronouncing it.

Geese have just flown over.
I hope they are going to Saskatoon.

Connubial

Because with alarming accuracy
she'd been identifying patterns
I was unaware of—this tic, that
tendency, like the way I've mastered
the language of intimacy
in order to concela how I felt—

I knew I was in danger
of being terribly understood.

This Dunn book and others are available from Jane Street Press. Link below.