In Matters of Taste we are not Equal

Summerpond 120 x 100 x 1.8 cm - acrylic on canvas

IN MATTERS OF TASTE WE ARE NOT EQUAL

Amid the rubbish a storm 

has discarded in the gun

turret of some plump 

burgher’s suburban vehicle

is a piece of kitsch—an awful curtain

or is it a bed spread?

Who owned this stuff?

And why did they have

the bad luck (not “bad taste”)

to get caught up in

one of History’s shit storms,

plague, marauding armies, nuclear melt down?

Some disasters are made to sound

cute. Hurricane “Suzy,” say, or “Tina”

chaos in red boots and a short skirt

comes to mind

and tsunami sounds like

a delicate piece of fish

fashioned by elegant Asian

fingers into something tasty  

and, even more important,

trendy.

But it feels bad,

it feels like food

poisoning on the Monday

morning you’ve been fired

it feels like an evil verdict  

from the witch doctor-in-chief

the array of nauseating

treatments he’s lined up just for you.

It’s not easy to remain

fastidious when blood stains

on bullet-pocked rubble

are just beginning to fade. Still,

there’s no way I’m going to buy  

that moth-ravaged wall hanging

in the Sarajevo flea market. Not merely ugly,

the damn thing has got to be haunted.