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

Thirty is the new Fifteen

 

Primavera 40 x 40 x 9 cm - mixed media on wood

 

THIRTY IS THE NEW FIFTEEN

 

She has a crush on her yoga instructor.

Would like to keep an Australian boy

in her basement, tethered to a chaise longue.

Let him out to play cricket every now and then.

You throw glances she doesn’t throw back.

That you send her doughnuts, anonymously,

though she seems to abhor food of any sort,

is quiet lunacy. No one knows she sometimes visits

a toilet stall and touches herself there, smothering a scream.

Not so absurdly, she is an avid watcher of “Emily in Paris.”   

She once helped you translate spreadsheets into PowerPoint.

There are words in the air, modules of advice. Be yourself.  

Be anything but. It’s dog eat dog, it’s make ends meet, it’s ends

justify means: why would she tether you to a chaise longue?

Exchange your skateboard and wayward baseball cap

for khakis, a golf shirt, a pair of boat shoes. Here, take these; you’ll be fine. 

 

 

Mizumi

 

Mizumi 17,5 x 12,5 cm Monoprint on paper

 

 

 

 

TALKING ABOUT THE WEATHER

 

Wind, rain and hail coming all at once

making a mess of everything that

grows here. There’s some serious flooding

so we should be talking about the weather.

But I commune with Radiohead instead

and there’s no one around to say I shouldn’t.

We can label this the upside of solitude.

The downside being I’m the only person left I

can fight. Seen from any angle this is not a win-win.

Inventory includes a blood-pressure cuff and a

new pair of shoes as stiff as a neighbor’s smile.

Some European food porn. A few dozen tattered Penguins.

If dignity is a jewel of life that must be earned

then I am sure I left mine at a pawn shop—possibly El Paso,

maybe Bakersfield. Plus I have no idea what I did

with the money I got for it except that I ended

up in a place where a good breakfast is

suspiciously cheap. There may have been a girl

on roller skates doing tricky turns in a parking lot. Everyone has  

to feel lucky once or twice in a lifetime. Everyone has to feel

that the worst thing that can happen is a bad  

interpretation of the facts on the ground—which I think

was Tahoe. When the roller-skate queen in pink knee-pads face plants

I help her up, wipe off the blood with an old tea towel,

talk a little about the heat, then offer to buy her a 99 cent breakfast. 

 

 

Give me a reason to love you

  

I didn't have a Thing to Wear 40x30x3 cm - mixed media and collage on MDF

 

 

BEAUTY TRAP

 

There we were, snaking over the surface of things, down

the cracked fresco, up the prickly pear. It was

impossible to process so much beauty at one time.

It was like being too drunk to enjoy a Brunello.

Like Stendhal, besotted aesthete, toppling in

some Duomo, we had to take a lot of naps.

But it’s all part of the job: poets have to deal with beauty.

 

The landlord kept certain family secrets

buried just outside our bedroom window.

Or was it a barely submerged septic tank?

Down in the village, a woman, with a cutting edge  

haircut, sliced thin cuts of Parma ham for our sandwiches.

 

We met a self-proclaimed humanist at the Stazione bar

whose primary credential was four years

of high school Latin. He looked like a

hipster Machiavelli. “In Vino Veritas,” he slurred dryly

while hitting on our waitress. Working one summer

in a Santa Fe convenience store he met a man who had

done a photo-essay on Sophia Loren. “He said

she was gorgeous of course but had the hands of a peasant.”

Why the “but?”

 

I hate to confess this but I wouldn’t know a peasant’s hands

If, for the mere fun of it, they slapped me across the face.