Holy Jeans

 

Skindeep - 70 x 70 cm, acrylic and charcoal on paper

 

 

HOLY JEANS

 

Back then music was everywhere. Results were mixed:

the garage band across the street never got

past the opening chords of Sunshine Of Your love.

Who was the hang up? Slowhand not slow enough?

Ginger Baker’s drum roll a little too stoned? We’ll never know.

 

On the corner of Arkansas and Texas there was,

suitably enough, a run-down ranchette, overgrown,

weedy yard, big branched red state tree

drooping out front. Within, a witch brooded.

 

Fact, humans don’t give a shit about facts: we want indecorous

drama, beautiful lies, Main Street baton twirlers. On a day after

school she rolled up popping a wheelie, a different sort

of witch, Saint Christopher necklace pendulous

from her brown neck (dirt/sun combo). Her favorite song

was Hey Jude. Why? ” Because it’s about a dog.”  

 

The older witch docked her drunken boat

of a station wagon, bag of fresh pharmaceuticals

in a death grip. The only words she ever spoke to us:

“Kindly get the fuck off my lawn.”

Which, I would suggest, was more vernacular than imprecatory.