Not Still Life

Drawn out of a stiff hog brush
it gets to you, his invention.
Flat on the ground his gored horse croaks,
great yellow horse-teeth bared.
Stuck in its paint!
Grey paint white paint black —
paint of blood and crud stirred.
A painter put it there.

Wide-eyed Picasso's fixed stare!
Fact and fiction that crash head-on.
He says I must, bystander,
be part of this disaster.

Another: on her brash couch this blonde broad.
Stretched out, she's pink-on-lime-stripes —
starkers, and out-stares your artful lust.
Unabashed....
A bare light-bulb swings like a testicle
over her bare face.
She too, thick pigments.
Even harsh shadows here are garish.

Inextricable! You know this glue,
act and idea, in everyone's wrangle.
What mind's grip on the true will deter
what necessity has stashed?

Still, relief gets in sideways.
You notice how passing amusements
can make the best of things —
that, and a tendency to forget.

Gerald Solomon

Archived 11/28/2011