Ingress

Ingress 80 x 100 cm - acylic on paper

THE HUMAN POTENTIAL MOVEMENT

Scads of people inhabit the season…at the mall, no less.

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall…Sale!

Merely people, they pretend to be something else.

Superheroes, supermodels, superstars. But what are they, really?

And what would it be like to enter their heads?

It might resemble a commercial spot for some glitzy review

downtown, song and dance, acrobatic erotica, a bit with a dog.

Not downtown New York or London, more like Berlin or Vegas

where such theatres still exist, reminders of what we’d like to forget.

Beneath the glitter, a mouthful of snap and pop, cracking like bone,

sausage or a burrito, or possibly hard candy. Maybe popcorn.

Good, because, according to marketing experts, we work out

our aggressions by chewing something that feels like it’s fighting back;

keeps random public mayhem to a tolerable minimum.

Below the chewing there’s a humming sound that increases

to the whine of a huge, insanely thirsty mosquito drilling through

layers of humiliation, slights, rejection. Sometimes

you wake up feeling like Sylvia Plath without knowing who she was.

You wannabe Jessica Jones. You wannabe Iron Man. You might even

settle for being Robert Downey Jr., or his personal assistant, like

Bowie’s PA who inherited two million after Major Tom passed away.

But even if you could score such a gig it is unlikely RD Jr.’s kicking

anytime soon though some of us wish he was in better movies. Seeking heat  

you reach out for someone to cuddle: your very own supersized love burger. 

Hot Wax

Nightflight 120 x 120 x 2 cm, acrylic, oilpastel on canvas

THIS POEM

This poem should not be taken as a sedative.

See it as a warning. Or just a bunch of words.

But do not even assume it is medicinal.

Neighbors we can ignore but not their

dogs who stick their snouts into everything

and will not be denied a good sniff. Who’s

the master in this scenario? The man who thinks

he’s a philosopher king ( Why? Because he drives

   an Audi?) or the poodle he’s

bathing in the communal garden?

I have no qualms about ignoring

a boring neighbor’s tame incoherencies

and can still admire in a mode of aesthetic  

appreciation the elegance and poise

of his poodle. Any poodle. Any beautifully speechless doggy.

Charley Don’t Surf’s been said, but the unsaid

should stay where it is, lost in a Parisian stairwell

that ends its twisting passage at a door behind which

laughter-music-casual sex

hinder words from making their meaningful noise.