Image by kenne
Autumn Still Life
Multicolored corn dried on the cob,
gourds huddle like friends in conversation—
their skins rough, their colors honest.
We gather, too,
carrying the years in our faces,
the joy in our hearts.
Outside, the wind shifts—
a hush before winter.
For a moment,
everything feels painted
in the same theme:
the harvest,
the stories,
the tender ache
of being here again.
Sunset Over Tanuri Ridge — Image by kenne
Becoming
Sunsets shouldn’t be taken for granted.
We’ve earned that wisdom.
They aren’t endings, but continuations—
light working through its final argument.
The desert holds its breath.
We’ve both run out of reasons
to explain beauty.
It happens anyway—
the sky goes dark,
and we call it grace.
Not because it lasts,
but because it doesn’t.
Later, inside,
the room fills
with the faint scent
of dust and air,
the residue of light
still on our faces.
You turn away to pour wine.
I watch,
knowing one day
I’ll remember this—
the silence,
the dimming,
the simple act
of not taking it for granted.
Self-portrait (07/30/10,11:36:01 PM)
Self-Portrait Titled Intellectual Ignorance
yeah,
that’s what I called it.
sounded clever at the time—
like I knew something
about the world.
I had read Sartre and Camus,
underlined all the wrong lines,
and drank enough cheap bourbon
to mistake despair for wisdom.
I thought too much,
said too little,
wrote like a man digging
with a spoon.
the mirror didn’t care.
it just looked back—
same tired eyes,
of a life pretending
to be deep.
call it what you want,
a portrait,
a confession,
a joke—
hell, maybe I got it right after all:
it is intellectual ignorance
to think I could ever
paint myself true.
Sonoran Sunrise Over The Rincon Mountains — Image by kenne
Sonoran Sunrise
The mountains drink fire.
Saguaro stand tall
blessing the dawn.
Ocotillo bleeds light,
fingers trembling
in the pale wind.
The sun—
golden blades—
cut the sky
wide open.
Silence spills
into flame.
And the desert,
old, dreaming,
remembers its heart—
burning,
always burning.
Moon and Stars Over Mountains — Image by kenne
— kenne
Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly on A Bird of Paradise — Image by kenne
Yellow butterfly,
its wings flicker
like thighs parting.
The flower trembles,
stamens sticky,
pollen dust falling,
sweet stink of heat.
Butterfly enters the flower,
slow as the insect’s tongue
sliding into nectar.
The air itself
quivers,
a humming body,
a wet mouth,
a raw opening.
Sunlight hard on the skin,
sweat dripping,
everything exposed.
The butterfly lifts—
nothing holy,
nothing profane,
just wings,
just hunger,
just flight.
Tom Turner at Home in Seattle (In his notes, I came across a Kierkegaard quote, which I used to start the
following three-fragment poem, which reflects Tom’s philosophy.)
I
The whole of my being shrieks in contradiction.
To live is to suffer this clash of opposites—
to despair is to forget it.
II
I am the tension:
finite and infinite,
time and eternity.
If I dissolve it, I lose myself.
III
The contradiction is not my enemy—
it is my teacher.
Through it, I hear the Spirit whisper,
though I only answer in silence.
Decatur Street Painting by kenne (2007)
The House That Leans to Jazz
Thomas R. Turner — Image by kenne
In Tom’s notes under,
“Nostalgia For Lost Illusions,”
he wrote:
Kenne & Joy
Still Together
To remain is not to resist change,
but to deepen within it.
Love matures as stone does—
weathered, patient,
gaining beauty from what it endures.
Two souls, shaped by the same years,
learning that care
is the purest form of desire.
— kenne
Sunglasses Reflect the World — Photo-artistry by kenne
Sunglasses
Catalina Foothills — Image by kenne
Foothills at Sunset
Molino Basin Trail — Image by kenne
Missing the Trails
I miss the dust,
the way it clings to your boots
like memory.
The smell of creosote after rain,
the hawk cutting silence
into ribbons of sky.
Down here,
everything feels too paved,
too polite.
Up there,
the mountains didn’t care—
and that was freedom.
Monsoon Sunset from Our Patio — Image by kenne
— kenne
Cutleaf Evening Primrose — Image by kenne
Mountain Winter Wind
