For Carlos, by Nancy Vala

The Death of Casagemas, by Pablo Picasso (Spain) 1901

For Carlos
 
I hold a palette full of blue
because of you, my friend.
Here, where you lived,
the walls are damp with sadness.
Empty bottles stink of love
that destroys love, leaves it
limp, useless, laughable.
 
Laughter can destroy a man
 
I smudge indigo under your eyes;
a candle burns in the cold.
You were tired of the gray world,
amor gris, your heart full of clouds.
I watched you button up your coat
while ghosts paced unseen by your side
their icy fingers on your bones.
 
Blues seep through the memory
of our last meeting, red with anger.
Cerulean, Prussian, Ultramarine, Cobalt.
Red blood from the hole in your head.
Cherchez la femme, always la femme.
The gun in your hand held no forgiveness
for your drunken, tattered soul.
 
Now I paint only blue until blue
is all that I see in the old, the blind
the prostitute, the destitute,
your waxen face, your spirit
heavy with your tears and mine.
A pale green rain wets the sidewalk
outside Café L’Hippodrome.
 
This will take years.
 
Nancy Vala
  
Nancy Vala is an artist, writer and singer-songwriter. Her writing has appeared in Best Women's Travel Writing and The Pigeon Parade Quarterly. She tries to always live by a river and recently moved south to Knoxville on the Tennessee River from Minneapolis on the Mississippi.