Pavarotti's Hanky

Die Zugfahrt - The Train Ride 40 x 30 cm Acryl on HDF board

ANDY WARHOL

We are asked to believe

Little Pete the street poet is Rimbaud

in no-ass pants, gobs of grubby

underwear hanging out

like Pavarotti’s hanky. Next, the Zeitgeist

comes prancing out of You Tube

singing hey looky looky at me

clutching its crotch and before long 

you clutch yours as well just

to see what it feels like even if

the terrain is well known to you. Not a

major issue any way you

look at it. After all

life could be more harrowing; at least you 

aren’t slotted for a body bag fitting

somewhere in the Hindu Kush. Demo-

graphically and even geographically  

you’re all wrong for such a last act. Are 

probably not from Kansas, from god

awful west Louisiana, from anywhere

in the Kentucky fried heartland.

You’ve never seen a trailer park or fired a gun,

never did crystal meth, never carelessly

impregnated your underage girlfriend

because rubbers weren’t available at Stop N’ Go.

You are not necessarily of the opinion that God hates fags.

No, you talk the talk or at least

try to and wait for signals from

somewhere far away

and unbearably cool, even if that only means

wearing the most unthinkable shoes

ever thought of. And yet

who doesn’t end up a like a tarnished icon

milking applause at a state fair? Who isn’t

Bobby Vinton in Sacramento?

The Beach Boys in Springfield, Illinois?

Andy Warhol just before he put his wig on the last time?

Nessun dorma - Puccini

sung by Luciano Pavarotti