Catfish McDaris Poems

Intense sheer walls painted
hyacinth and saffron with
brushstrokes of scarlet sulfur

Searching for silver spoon to
make sotol and datura for sun
tea and going on a magic trip

Dangerous peacocks in a raspberry
sky, green sleeping ducks by the
cattail forest and melodic stream

Rainbow cutthroat trout leaping
for the gnat hatch, fat frogs burping,
loons and cranes on stilts hunting

Vincent thought about the dancer
at the Crazy Horse and how she'd
asked him to steal a Van Gogh,
he painted her one instead.
...

Coltrane in the Van Gogh rain,
"Hey Fish, what you working on?"
my boss, Big Joe Cocomo asked
he was from Texas, my black pals

At work loved me being a writer,
I showed my latest to Joe, he said,
"You like Trane?" I nodded yes
"What are your favorite songs he

Plays?" "Lazy Bird and The Night
Has a Thousand Eyes" "You must
have taken beaucoup acid, back in
the day? Who's your sketch of?"

"Vincent Willem van Gogh" "Not
bad kid" we both laughed, since I
was twice his age, back to Gauguin,
he lopped off Vincent's ear with his

Sword during an argument, they
agreed to say it was self-mutilation,
to keep Gauguin out of prison, van
Gogh never recovered his rationality.
...

Thinking about Vincent's madness
layering paint on canvas, thick
plaster colors, mountains, valleys.

An earthquake in Italy killed 100's.
a one-year-old baby was hot in
Milwaukee, he tried to climb out

A window and the window slammed
down on his little neck, killing him.
a woman put her baby in the refrigerator

To cool down, she forgot she did it, her
man comes home three hours later, goes
to get a beer and finds their dead daughter.

An eleven-year-old girl was riding her
bike, the driver hit her dragging her for
three blocks and kept on going, drunk.

Vincent, you died at thirty-seven, you
are thought of as a freak that cut off his
ear, I see you in the swirling starry night.
...

The sky was drunk, the sun puked lemon
juice, the moon had a toothache, the lady
asked the dope fiend to come to talk to
Jesus, he smelled of absinthe and funk.
...

When the lilacs bloom
their purple scent intoxicating
the air, the white bass run
in the Root River

My ladies & I catch
three & cook them over
a pungent fire on
green sticks with herbs

Most fisher folks take
stringers full & stop
at a place & clean
their catch for hours

They look at us quizzically
as we feast & wiggle our
toes in the icy rushing water.
...

As I paint
I think about

Van Gogh painting
sunflowers & irises

Degas painting ballerinas

Cezanne painting fruit

Gauguin's Tahitian women

Frida Kahlo capturing sadness

Neruda & Li Po painting
with words

I wonder if any
of them ever

Painted a bathroom
with ordinary
white latex.
...

Al and Cat met in Paris
they ate some horse and
crepes and strawberries
near Jim Morrison's grave

In the Metro many men were
pissing on Willie Nelson post-
ers but not on Francis Cabrel
Cat knew a chick with a friend

They were dancers and they
loved sliding upon the pole
after hashish and vino, there
were two smiling happy poles.
...

Sorcery and witchery still flourishes
people need protection, salt strewn
around an encampment helps ward

Off demon attacks, corn meal mixed
with gall of an eagle, bear, mountain
lion, or skunk is potent medicine

Witches live along the Rio Grande,
they steal Mexican sheep and cause
death, beware of shape shifters

Brown and gray corn known as maiz
de brujeria should be avoided, healing
elixirs are mercury, Gonzalez herb,
guayuli, and powdered turquoise.
...

The snow melted upon her skin
hot drifting desert sand blown
smooth hungry and beautiful

The two wars inside each person
go on forever, love and hate
the sky always a gun barrel blue gray

After she left all was loneliness and
one can on a table the label read
DEATH, eat it before it eats you.
...

Mary ripped off the bandage, his brain
tumor was visible, the treatments had
made him worse, she made a blunt

From a grape cigar and some red bud
Columbian, Quick's mouth watered in
anticipation, he told her to put on Tom

Petty singing about dancing the last time
with Mary Jane, he toked hard on the herb
he dreamed of the Louvre and Whistler's

Mother getting out of her rocking chair
and walking like an Egyptian, the Thinker
bumping fists with him and La Gioconda
shedding blue purple crocodile tears.
...