Gouge Away

 

Almost Under Control 40 x 40 x 4 cm

 

ALTERNATE FACTS

 

Strolling under a jeweled sky was once

upon a time a small festival.

Not much else going down.

Nightingale solo. A few crows

bothering the corn. Drafty castle

in the far north of nowhere

in particular. Sheep in the distance.

The First Family on the ramparts

waiting for the Duke of Earl, replete

with slaughter, to return home.

Stoical duchess, blooming daughter,

pimpled heir apparent. In that cold tower,

full of life even though death pressed upon

them everywhere, pestilence, rusty nail,   

the chopping block. Just waking up

was a feast day. Today at work you were in

a meeting in which tiddlywinks and a burping

contest might have fit on the agenda.

Why not, what else, who cares?

Waking up to just another day.  

 

 

The Burning

Dervish 60 x 60 cm - acrylic on canvas

 

THE BURNING

 

Citizens of numerous

online domains…I watch you

swipe over Instagram like it’s

…well…you know…nothing.

 

You look up from your phone, notice an old man

emerging from a deep vibe, retro-enigmatic, moving

stealthily in your direction. Pretend stealth.

He wants you to be alarmed.

 

Looks like the type who would burn his papers

against a broken wall in some fragrant, bone dry,

southern land. Pornographic prose poems, diaries, letters

vicious with gossip. Released from paper, from so many significances,

 

you don’t burn anything these days. Delete mails.

Unfriend strangers on Facebook. That’s the end of it.

And no can one report

mad scribblings on the back of 

ripped open envelopes anymore.

 

James Schuyler wrote that Auden burned his papers

like a diplomat burning secret documents

while the embassy’s under siege. Now, admit it,   

you have to believe you’re pretty important to do that. 

 

 

Hey

 

Wrap yourself around Me 40 x 40 x 4,5 cm

 

MAKE-OVER

 

And the POETRY edition dedicated

   to Asian-American women

poets in prison?    that you happened?    to appear in?

   I think I’m jumping

   the gun a little. Too many effing question marks. We both

need a make-over. The only way you earn money

   out of me

is I stop writing this poem immediately

   and start a screenplay about

a totally made up YOU born in Macao  

   who at age three is sold to adoptive parents.

   In Hollywood. “Swimming pools, movie stars.” 

Your name is Liz, Elizabeth Caroline Wu, to be

   pedantic about it, but wait a sec,

back up, let’s turn this thing into a novel instead,

   a crime novel

about the world’s first and hopefully last

   Asian-American hit woman

slash summa cum laude graduate in Women’s Studies

   U.C. Berkeley slash poet, expert in radical discourses

set in strophic verse. However. Slipping a mickey to mainly male victims

   then suffocating them with a yellow satin pillow

is your real forte, even raison d’ etre. You never need  

   say a word and no one feels a thing.

   PERFECT. Let’s add your entrepreneurial success,

Silicon Valley start-up, ultimate move to Austin, seduction

 

   of billionaire space cadet Rafon Tusk who gradually

absorbs your company, fires the board, installs himself as CEO

   so you have no choice but to

take him out, a little powder in his energy drink,

   apply the satin pillow

over his always stuffy nose, and over that pouty

    mouth of his that you once thought was so “cute”

   but now detest, two pillows, and voila

Rafon’s no more than a glorified rumor on the lips

   of grieving podcasters.

   But wait a sec, back up, let’s simplify

this thing, dial it back, make you look more interesting

   than you actually are. FIRST: really short hair.

What used to be called a Little Boy’s haircut but this time for girls.

   Then a tattoo of a red spider

crawling up one of your mini-skirted thighs. PERFECT. A cluster

of readymade fans making selfies

   with you at some content-free

red carpet event in Bakersfield.

You never need say a word and no one feels a friggin thing.

 

 

 

I'm in Love (Through rose-colored Glasses)

 

Through rose-colored Glasses 68 x 42 - mixed media on canvas

 

 

I’M IN LOVE

 

with the portrait of a certain poet

composing a few wet verses

in her bath. Little kid’s in love

with the ball he’s kicking around, would

fight to the death for it. I know someone

in love with the youngish Iggy Pop, his hebre-

phenic squalor, his flexible graceful damaged  

body diving into an audience. But it’s Iggy’s need   

to be loved that he really loves. A certain poet   

loves Black Sabbath channeled through Wolf Alice

on Giant Peach, the live version, and I love

Italian cities in the first chill of morning, smelling

of espresso mixed with chocolate, brioche crumbling

through my fingers while I stand watching workers  

reading pink colored sports pages, nervous, twitching,  

longing for a smoke, and who look up whenever an elegant  

woman walks by, which is often, and I love that the men know  

instinctively when to raise their eyes. I love it that 

my wife stands on her toes whenever she’s ecstatic. 

 

 

Reverb at low Volume

 

Silent Reef 80 x 80 x 1.8 cm - acrylic on canvas

 

 

REVERB AT LOW VOLUME

 

To your left

a threadbare curtain, swelling

       in the breeze, a purple sail

under which, you briefly imagine, Cate Blanchett’s  

eying her lover on the Royal Barge. How retro! On paper

are words that would bore anyone to death, which means

                all bets are off, you have NOTHING to say.

Oh writer, oh poet, make yourself useful, take out the garbage

      at least. Follow your nose next door where 

           fat ribs on a neighbor’s grill sizzle, his taciturn     

                 wife, plump as a burrito, swiping her phone.

       Finally, the meaning of life—and it’s… food? Food offered

by a woman whose smile says there’s no trouble in the world.

              Or is it the locked-in Mardi Gras of a smart phone? Or is

      it October light in this garden, lovely and dark-rimmed?

   I mean it is dark, almost black, BEHIND the light.

          There’s no way into something new but to switch on the lights

and watch—with relative compassion or mild

sadic curiosity—the cats—pretty, long-haired psychopaths—

                             cornering a suicidal moth. An innocent

hits the off switch, but soon we hear the growl of success: of course,

                  the gorgeous fuckers can see in the dark.  

 

 

 

 Edie Brickell - Good Times