THE METAMORPHOSIS

 

Mars, May 19 acrylic on canvas board 60 x 50 cm / 23.6 x 19.7 in

THE METAMORPHOSIS

The first time I saw Greece

my nose started twitching. Didn’t stop.

It was sunlight on pale luminous

pines that did it the first time.

A tangy, sappy fragrance. This was on

the pretty if minor island of Poros—

the way a good looking jump shot

is minor or extra deep dimples

are nice but in no way significant—

sometimes grilled meat in the alleyways

below the Acropolis did the trick.

The reek of goats in Galatas too.  

I felt like my senses were taking in

every bush tree flower face rush

of surf at three am, scent of ouzo on the Metro.

The pallid face of a particular bar maid was

a vision of the Underworld. And one

dusty, odorous afternoon in Athens I saw Beauty

working in a shop. I stepped inside stepping

into the hooves and skin of something not me.

The woman in a cream-colored tank top

didn’t make me think of her

olive green eyes and faintly

musk-inspired perfume

nor even of her thick black eyelashes

or the profundity of her hips

but of the lucky servant whose job it was to polish her

cheekbones and shoulders that very morning

then released her into the city where one

glance turned me into a snouted 

four-legged beast grunting in the corner.

 

Miro's Game

Miro's Spiel/Miro's Game 29 x 29 cm acryl on raw canvas

ICONOCLASTS

A couple hundred years

after Jesus was sacrificed

his followers, dressed

in black robes, stinking

to high heaven, faces wooly

with coarse hair, smashed the noses,

breasts and penises of classical

statuary, carving crosses on the calm marble foreheads

of Apollo and Aphrodite. Stinking Taliban

bearded like fundamentalist hipsters

blowing up graceful representations

of Buddha in some outback of Hindu Kush,

leaving only shit and garbage in their wake.

The Islamic State spreading its thuggish

theater of pious cruelty,

bulldozing and hammering into dust the

unutterable elegance of Palmyra. Now my beautiful end game

is that all of these ungodly freaks

square-off in a sealed-up arena just before time begins

armed with their cudgels and their jackhammers

and sticks of dynamite, and throw in a horde of West Bank Zealots

and pro-gun lobbyists, and have them all go after each other

with the ferocity of hyenas rending the remains

of a young antelope. Polluted blood rises to the rafters.

Who do I think would win, you ask? Why, honey, you and I would win.

Pop

 

Pop 120 x 120 cm/47.24 x 47.24 in - mixed media on canvas

SOME STRANGE PEOPLE AND EVENTS

                         

He’s obviously a troubled man—

MAGA trucker’s cap

perched on his combover—and is

screaming at a guy behind the counter:

“bullshit it never takes fifteen minutes for takeout enchiladas

more like five…ten max,” and that Juan or Ruiz  

can shove his “fifteen minutes, you frigging wet back.” He doesn’t so much

storm out as take off in a huff. A hefty sample of the “anger”

everybody’s talking about? Or, better, how about bat-shit-

out-of-your-fucking-mind-crazy? How about so nutty

squirrels from all over the world could sup

greedily for hours at the banquet of his lunacy?

Glad he didn’t whip-out his Glock.

                          

In Marrakesh we got stuck in the midst of

a human traffic jam: an alleyway straight out of antiquity—even

a couple of donkey-drawn carts thrown into the mix—moving

an inch at a time, all of us serene and mannerly,

spreading contentment outward, a way of

being that can only be called utopian. Not quite as momentous

as fighting over scraps at the breakfast buffet. Or a life-germinating

exchange of bodily fluids at sun set. And not strange, really, just surprising.