Stuff

Theft of Suffering for the Sake of Art

1.

Dear old Darger, he were a good artist,

and fair to steal from, what with being crazy

and now gone. What was his is yours, no soul

but what was peeled out of a dead man's book.

Outsider artists who borrow brushes

from genuine freaks, being freaks themselves, but

less likely to be cold, lonely, or in

a lot of pain, ought to admit their sources.

Darger feared the storm of a strangled girl,

he warred, he raged. In the orphan home he

survived. Lost sister, mother, father, then

his only friend; far off, but kept in mind.

The Vivian sisters were his soul in

dresses, his heart in blood-painted flowers.

2.

Why was I so pissed off when a fellow

artist enthusiastically copied

a great dead nut-case's art, that saved the

nut’s life, or made it, more like, when what is

loved is inhabited by the lover

and is honored by the habitation?

What crime is it to lift out of the soup

of images some beautiful frail bit

of lost longing? Where’s my soul’s voice, my missed

gift of devoted copying, enrapt

coloring, living in? Art made by nuts

is art from the heart, bloody and full scale,

a gorgeous mutant, born of want, beloved

avenging monster with butterfly wings.

Story

Cicada grubs snugged numerously together

in the weak limb. Slept, dreamed,

devoured tree flesh, grew fat

with organs of song, reproduction.

They'd build

a cage of self to struggle free of, stand

in sun and wind,

fill the sky

with love's deafening racket.

The branch fell, their dreams

rolled on, green dials hidden in boles,

faces in woodgrain and clouds.

Monster Holiday

“Careful with that,”

said the monster

to the mover

with the glass jar

full of knapsacks and toes,

“and that too,”

he said (or was it she?)

of the mirror

with knapped edges.

Arrow,

enter the moon,

buy a statue of love.

Court a courtly lover,

grease the banjos in their apartments

sadly going over the figures

of department store dummies

still wearing the light

green seersucker dresses

of a 1970’s dream,

still asking for extra,

whichever it might be,

whether syrup or milk,

ointment or string.

Climbed up the fire escape with a noose

Sat on a stone sill. Said,

“Why kill yourself?

You’re gonna die anyway.”

It made a lot of sense,

peered in at the door

for a look at something

far from ordinary, though dull.