tap the stonemason

a long winter's night,  oil on canvas,  60" x 84"

*****

while it's true that tap is a stonemason, he also has a little known, cursedly blessed past life, shrouded in the spotlight of a renaissance duomo time-piece.  he was a one-eyed-jack sheriff in the old west, a one-armed amazonian river-boat gambler, wore badges of honour on the inside of his cap, constructed handmade, samurai double-edged swords.  as a young man he learned to walk on hands, spin on head, fight a dozen ninja's at a time with his good hand behind his back. he always took no for an answer, then tore it up, re-arranged it, glued it back together, waited, waited, waited til the sun was ripe for the picking, til the light was running on empty, til the hands of time sang, chorus-like, in unison, "minutes, seconds, hours, we are flowers underneath the twin towers". only then, did the world around him stop, stare, like a head in the deer-lights, recognizing the ethereal patterns of his war-torn, catch-me-if-you-can, first-man-round-the-world-in-a-hot-air-balloon past life.

*****