Covered Emotions
by Odin Roark

My layered burials started off
as a seaside beach of sand castle dreams,
where memories began,
and growing up seemed a fantasy.

There was the time he painted me
into a circus ring where red nosed clowns
came from a miniscule car,
showing children and adults roaring with laughter.

Yet…

Like so many artists,
I wasn’t delivering his message,
his purpose,
his worthiness,
always short of critical worthy acknowledgment.

But today…

Today, I’m a big-time gesso-layered landscape,
barren of expression save the straying kite
strategically placed just right of center,
while an unmoving rock waits patiently,
for patrons, students, curators
and critics alike to get it.

And there you sit,
your haunches getting numb,
your head tilted to the left,
ears pricked with skyward attention,
while your master sits pensively
atop the gallery bench,
his dark lens of perception
listening to the nothingness
of images only he can imagine.

We wonder, don’t we,
if he hears the weeping
of so many buried emotions
painted over and over,
cast-aside dreams unfulfilled,
dashed hopes and trust left homeless,
blanketed feelings wanting only to be loved.

Hopefully, he’ll not forget my life as canvas
is starting to succumb to this heavy load,
his framed rack of stretched and severed dreams.

Everything and everybody…
well, time runs out,
you know?

The seeing-eye dog tilts her head,
and continues staring.