Ode to the Drunken Painter

O’ for the swirling psychedelic 

A non-existent curtain call 

Sacrilege yet still angelic 

Clairvoyance mixed with alcohol 

O’ for the artist lost in trifle 

Flamboyance hiding deep despair 

Full of stories, always lurking 

Somehow something must be there 

O, to drunken mirth pulled from the brink 

Where sorrows turn the canvas blue

Fade far away, dissolve in ink

The years count up to twenty two 

And yet with every paint soaked stroke

The child writhes within the skin 

O’ colors that always provoke

The happiness that lives within 

To weariness that aches the mind

Brings pinks that paint the summer breeze 

And to the anger unconfined 

That brings the canvas to its knees 

By Rebecca Pannapacker