Walk Unafraid

 

untitled mixed media on canvas board 60 x 50 cm

UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER?

Someone advises: just stay calm—and this in the midst

of gross injustice or shitty divorce; or when stepped on

by sadistic cop or bad ass boss—stay calm?

Am I supposed to beg for mercy,

like an animal baring his throat? Are humans

known to be merciful? Are there

enough white flags in the Principal’s office?

Do they push back when slapped around

by a bully boy southeaster? Or hang limp as boiled pasta?

White means you’re outta here, you give up.

You want to live to run another day. You gild the lily liver yellow.

Sometimes you have to brandish a fist, crack a knuckle

on some asshole’s chin, pull the Bill of Rights out of your boot—

who can say when a reflective surface might catch your glimpse?

Vacation in the Tropics

Vacation in the Tropics - Urlaub in den Tropen 36 x 48 cm mixed media on paper

LIFE IS A BEACH

                                    

First, an unconventional

colloquial statement

what the fuck is this shit

(watch your language, girl)

as the wind just about tears

your head off, bleak Baltic

sandbar shreds and tatters

of foam sliced finer by the cutting

edge of a force seven son of a

beach, yes, a beach, eaten alive by flux & reflux

everything the same & not

the same unlike Lesbos where in light

that penetrated and pealed back the phenomenal

world there was nothing underneath and

everything stayed unique, unambiguous, loads of sand

three miles long, more or less bare of people

the sea a liquefaction of quiet blue silk

a pair of immoderately attractive

lesbians a few yards from us

across a dirt road where they rented

a nice little house, every morning the more fem of the two

stomping off to the bakery in high

heels & mini skirt & in a huff

her tall boyishly butch elegantly dark lover stretched out

in bed reading a magazine, smoking a doob

on Mykonos Paradise Beach was a visit to the zoo

here a penis, there a breast, white powdery sand

filtering thorough fingers, filling the cracks, killing us

a clichéd metaphor but useful

think of hour glasses and sandy windswept sundials, etc.

in the hotel bar a PowerPoint

teaser on the efficacy of mass delusion

had us begging for more, voting for less

the idea of progress creates trust in the future   makes

credit (growth) possible   speaking of Australia

when I was ten or eleven I wondered who 

would win in a fight a great white or a killer 

whale and then I saw a human

so big space made room for him

while he preened like a model

like a priest who relishes

the contradictions of his faith.  

If you believe in my beach, I’ll believe in yours.

Stars and Stripes

Stars and Stripes 30 x 40 cm gouache/oil pastel/charcoal on paper

A BAG OF POTATO CHIPS

A voice in my head lobbied against it—

the voice of bad conscience it

was sometimes and voice of good news

other times, voice of my wife full-time

it was a relatively short voice that

seemed to think it was tall—but I jumped anyway,

slamming my knee against an outcrop

of porous stone. I ask you to imagine physical

agony as a location, a spot on the map,  

that’s where I was ( Pain City, Ohio, sounds about right,

shops preening with leather and steel devices,   

unyielding plastic, ferocious dildos, bull whips, etc.), and I’m

hobbling down the mountain side, hungry as a bear, thinking only

about the rolled up bag of potato

chips, contents half-eaten, on the passenger seat of our filthy little Fiat.

Down before the shadows could catch us up

the voice said “Boy, you should never jump in the mountains,”

threatening to report me to her grandfather, severe pedagogue

   of the alpine heights, a short man

who also seemed to think he was tall. I could only

answer with crunching noises, having just

shoved a handful of chips into my mouth.

Barbecue-flavored, if I’m right, with just a hint of cheese.