Figure. Circles stacked.
August is the eight of months.
Caesar bred these days for himself;
The highest days of thirty-one
Placed within his own form’ed year.
Julius stamped his face upon our days,
Now his garland-faire is ever there.
Brothers come in four, brothers come
Winter, spring and summer more.
Brother spills from coffee pot.
Brother shakes and bakes a lot.
Brother stamped as sire wrought,
Stamped his face on Caesar’s plot.
© rl busséll 2018 – All rights reserved.
For the ‘exalted’ son. May your days be as exalted and your name.
Photo by Ángel Fernández Alonso on Unsplash
The early morning drive,
well, the early morning start,
started with us piling ourselves
onto floorboard,
floorboard and seat,
piling with blanket, pillow and bucket
(the bucket, in case my stomach rebelled)
We three, well four, if you count me,
are riding, our cousins, to see.
We don’t have much on the plate.
But it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter our state.
We’re taking a trip, riding on floorboard and seat.
Riding and reading, if our stomach allows.
Riding and drawing, if our pencil stays proud.
Riding and pushing, if our brothers do crowd.
We’re taking a trip, riding ‘round Shasta, quiet and loud.
The miles pass in seventies best,
they’re draped in greens and grays,
and then they are kissed;
they pass with silent rumbling sound,
under our feet, to our left and our west,
while number two clowns, number four frowns,
number one sits with with his eyes to the ground.
and I spread ‘cross the car’s center mound.
We try to play “license plate state.”
There is some “prize” to win if fifty we find,
or for the brother who makes it fastest to zed,
Oh, travel, rumble and sled.
Sightings of Shasta loom right ahead,
that great ice-headed mountain’s rising ahead.
And Grandpa sings “How Great”
as candied peanuts and “Lemonheads” 1
are shared from Grandma’s small plate.
Strong voice and hospitality great,
are shown while moving ‘round Shasta’s great peak,
shown while we nudge to gain room in our little grand place.
We’re with parents-grand; we’re safe in our space.
© rl busséll 2018 – All rights reserved.
Image from:
I take the silent step.
Keep my eyes up,
not looking to the broken ground.
I try to take a walk.
I try to keep from talk.
I try to still the clock.
You know the feeling.
You know that feeling,
when Picasso’s time 1
is spread wide and thick,
when the wind never seems
to go your way.
You try to catch your breath;
and it comes in fits and starts,
and it comes in flames and sparks,
and it comes in warring larks.
And then it fades.
You know the feeling.
You know that feeling,
when El Greco’s stretch, 2
seems real and right;
when proportions’ light
seems off, and not just by a mite,
and your limbs, they scream and bite.
They scream and bite,
and you’re stuck,
forever stuck on the bridge
with Munch, 3
and the screaming never stops.
You know that feeling.
You know the feeling.
© rl busséll 2018
The Vision of Saint John – by El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos) 87.5 × 76 inch oil on canvas (1608–1614 New York, Metropolitan Museum)
When the sun is done etching her lines upon my soul
and the sand is finished falling,
remember that you are the best part of my heart.
And all the ups and downs,
all the pressings into shapes untold,
all the works spilt from our misshapen molds,
all the words tumbling and shaping our souls
have not broken us upon our shoals.
Thus you’ve stood with me;
through the torrents of our times,
through the sickness of my sins,
through the fury of my fires.
Thus you’ve stood with me;
beyond our reason,
beyond the promise of Jordan,
beyond milk and honey’s flow,
beyond the silence of the night,
beyond the whispering cringes of the salty bite.
You’ve clasped your hand in mine;
knit your fingers into my flesh;
called your name by mine.
And in the passing of my time
never will I know a better me
than you.
© rl busséll 2018
For she who is a better me.
He had a particular gait — somewhere between Igor and Sasquatch; a shuffle that spoke of strength. He held his head high and with a toothy grin smiled his way into my life. I had to capture his stance. I had to picture his stand. How he held himself with honor and looked you straight in the eyes.
There are people that affect you, people that touch your life in untold ways, strangers that become friends, friends that become strangers. You never know who will change you. You never know the faces you’ll remember. What makes a person stick to you? What makes a person change the trajectory of your life? What butterfly’s wing will ripple your life? How many people have touched you? How many people have you touched? Honor does not lie in intelligence alone. Honor does not always sleep in the corridors of the powerful. There is honor in the small and quiet, there is honor in the ignored, weak, and forgotten. I am affected still by the shuffle-walk, haunted by hands held just so. So I honor him now by showing the world his face.
portrait 02 – detail © rl busséll 1982 Oil on Canvas
portrait 02 – detail © rl busséll 1982 Oil on Canvas
portrait 02 – © rl busséll 1982 Oil on Canvas
#BeautyFadethNot
Where is the Heart
When it beats too swiftly?
Where is the Soul
When it soars?
Does it beat its wings,
Does it flutter,
Does it hover,
Or merely wish to be Heaven born?
I can feel this sin sick soul within me.
Adam clinging to my Breast
As a Mother clings to her dying child.
Weeping.
Where is the Heart
When it beats too swiftly?
Where is the Soul
When it soars?
Where is Faith
When the footing is lost and
Tumbling o’er and o’er?
We are told it is invisible,
This faith we cannot see.
There are times when
I wish it would solidify
that I might
Behold my Destiny.
Where is the mountain that I can move?
copyright rlbusséll 2006
Years ago I worked at a home for the mentally disabled. It was a gloomy-happy place, a kind of box that locked away all, so that the world would garner no joy from its residents. The building had all the characteristics that come with such institutions: flickering florescent lights, wide dark hallways, and a quiet foreboding paleness. Yet, I have good memories of the people and the place. Despite their dire circumstances, they were, for the most part, joyful. Joy could be seen on their faces, in their eyes and in their unpretentious laughter; there was no one to impress, there was no one ingratiate, they had the freedom to be themselves.
I will be forever touched by the men and women that could not take care of themselves; by a people who could never grow up. People are not less honorable because their minds and their bodies do not grow at the same rate. There is a dignity in the face of a child-old. There is hope in a simple faith. God is not bound by our circumstances.
This is a thirty-nine-year-old painting of one of my charges. Painted alla prima, a method that helps produce fast oil sketches, impressions of impressions. It is done in one sitting. It doesn’t have to be thought about too much, doesn’t have be over-planned. I love this painting.
He speaks to me even after all the passing years. I can still hear his soft stammering mumble, see his gentle eyes and feel his big fingers softly touching my shoulder. His smile filled his face. He was a good man.
“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” — Mark 10:14-15
Oil on Canvas © rl busséll 1982
© rl busséll – 1982 Portrait Oil on canvas. (Detail)
Oscar rose before first light
to capture the sun’s
play upon the field.
There he stood, with his brush
at ready,
to steal the running sun’s
play upon the field.
With a loaded brush, he
played upon his field;
laying down the morning,
laying down the even,
laying down the season,
from spring to cold hiver.
In the rouges of the morning,
in the harshness of the noon,
in the azure of the evening,
he stole the colors of the sun,
he captured in the nineties
his time for everyone.
© rl busséll 2018
Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer) by Claude Monet – 1897 60 × 100 cm (Art Institute of Chicago)
There is no time for poetry;
for words that tumble out of mouth and tongue,
for words that form waves that spill from lung.
There is no time for poetry;
for words that make men tumble and weep,
for words that bring the dead from sleep,
for words that tear rocks from the keep.
There is no time for poetry;
for our words lie slick upon our tongues,
lie still before they’re born,
lie broken and torn.
There is no time for poetry;
words ever ready to set men upon the shining seas,
words that cause men to charge from quiet into chaos.
There is not time for poetry.
© rl busséll 2018
rl busséll — poet 
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