SELF PORTRAIT #9 : IF I WERE A PAINTING

self portrait #9: if i were a painting


if i were a painting
i’d be blurred contours
thick with texture and mystery

id be of limited colour
with smudged grey outlines
and razor sharp white streaks
added as an afterthought

i would not be done with precision
but abstract and surreal
a conceptual work instead of
clear and defined

id be loving irony
in soft diminutive glimpses
of paradise blues

id be thin vivid lines of
orange and yellow worked over
red glimpses through thick
grey and black minutes
forced into green shadows

my mind would be
empty boxes with blue lines
pointing to something like
the soul

my heart would be a
red square in black lines
beating difference


i would be studied
but never understood
and it would be never
before anyone noticed the
viole[n]t streak in this
backdrop of red
worked over black

copyright JANEisnotplain 2006

SELF PORTRAIT #8: AND

self portrait # 8: and


and she’s beautiful
and she’s unsettling
and she writes in big words
and she dots i’s and crosses t’s
and she doesn’t want to be touched by just anyone
and she doesn’t want to be seen

and she wants
to be adored
to be idolized
to be felt
to be heard
to be loved intimately

andandandand
and she is writing
and she is living
and she is dying
and she is
and

she
is

and that

is

all

copyright JANEisnotplain 18.11.06

SELF PORTRAIT # 7 : ASYMPTOTE

self portrait # 7: asymptote



stack of books
six editions thick
resting on each shoulder blade
weight the pressure

grey damp road
thick white centered line
marking the margins of expectations
balance attributes accordingly charged

baking light
fire from red dust everywhere
causes eyes to cast inward
the heat of fever encapsulates

weak failing medium
un-utilized calculator
living five feet from the ground
drawn in lines of asymptotes


copyright JANEisnotplain 18.11.06

from dream book, recurrent nightmares

SELF PORTRAIT #6: LEMON

self portrait # 6 : lemon


i am a salted lemon
more of a thick skin
with open pores and
acidic speech that
eats away at your surface
burning your tongue
so that you’ll want to
taste me again and again
yes, i am bitter
so, what’s your point?



JANEisnotplain2005

self portrait #5: 4/05

self portrait #5 : 4/05

this is me.

the acid in my skin makes carbonation disappear.  it lets nothing inside or left tied to the frame. works to keep arsenic coated ventricles pumping.

this is me.

a sketched image of scars and shaking limbs and angles of myself i never meant to discover but unfolded and refolded into honesty’s lonely palm.

this is me.

army of one in disarray living by the wayside. righting wrongs written on bareback breasts with the 2 bit melody of a 9-millimeter. a cavernous calamity.

this is me.

the pavement lays sparkling cold beneath my bare feet.  i’m poised like a broken trophy on a dusty shelf of bleached lives and vain curvatures called smiles.

this is me.

what will you do now that i am standing naked in front of you? what will you do now that i have one more layer to shed

what will you do now that i have nothing left to give?

this is me.

copy write JANE2005

(on Z)

self portrait #4: i am this poem

self portrait #4: i am this poem

i look like the lipstick on a collar, this piece of pansy
a vulnerable dream made pink with bleach and a vigorous spin cycle
i come out easily with toxic chemicals and listerine
only the faint remains, an unconscious trace of lines
forgotten, remembered in a present mind
and now they ask who i am

i am invisible words on a page
parallel between the lines
between the messages scrawled
on the bathroom stall
at 2AM.

i am a nameless faceless ninety-five pages
of text nailed against a heartless king's door
with a complaint for a face for an age
an image of the who and the who i am
like myself and me and i

i am a loveless easy speak on a page without signature
a sensation pressed on pale leather like a hot brand
an icon, a piece of eye, a configuration of fingerprints
smeared while writing on a wall
with my loaded pencil

i am visible words on a page
lines of parallel between
the messages scrawled
on the bathroom stall
at 2AM.

i am this poem


JANEisnotplain ’05

self portrait #3: poet

self portrait#3: POET

Welcome to the world divine

Of my creative tantrum mind

Out of which spills rhythm after rhyme

Sneaking up on your butt

Like a psychopathic nut

Deliciously daring

Yet conscientious and caring

I write my wrong

No matter what, I come at you strong

Red hot and spicy like cayenne pepper

I give you the philosophy that’s cooler than ever

More dope than heroin and sharper than a needle

That’s me in your vein flowing straight like a leader

The devil’s tool is inside this fool

So beware, don’t provoke me or loose your cool

There’s a dark side of light you should be scared to see

It’s a place I can’t allow anyone else to be

Where threads of me are knotted irretrievably

But just caress me, invest, and have faith in the best

Because behind these curtains that cloak and protect

Beyond the soapy rain and pelted pain

You will find I am the salt of another grain

Most completely the truth

You don’t need to be a sleuth

Just a soul with a gently tempered manner

To compliment my being madder than the hatter

You think you see me

Now you don’t

You might want to possess me

But you won’t

Because I am undefined by any such boundaries

JANEisnotplain 2003