[It began when I learned]
It began when I learned to sit I began when I burned and sat
in my boredom, our poverty with in my burden, our poverty was
pencil and pad. It was the unburdening pinned and paper-thin. It was the inbreaking
of my imagination amid the lights, of my imagination amid the lights,
the fevers, the shaking that shook the thieving that stole and stole
my line free. I’ve never been my steady hand. I’ve never been
reflective, but in those hours what deceptive, but in those hours what
else was there to do, what else else was there to do
was I to become? what else but learn to lie?
[At the bar I start a sketch]
At the bar I start the sketch on a scrap
of paper, draw his elegant neck (minus the scar).
This was before I could imagine my art on a larger scale,
even though I work as an illustrator, what I was in school
for. All the men I love (to draw) look tender and cool
like bottles of Coke on an August day, icy to the core.
You’d be amazed how eagerly they drop their pants for
me at my asking to draw their cocks. All I do is float
the word artist and they’re naked in ten seconds flat.
I keep the lines delicate, with just a little flare,
as soon as they leave, I call you on the phone.
[what if a fountain]
what if a fountain
is really a field
of flowers
art is
a response
a responsibility
and the artist
only a xerox in three-dee.
our mentors and our
tormenters companion us
birds descending
on repetitively patterned
wings
who clasp
their beaks
to lift drops of water
from the deep pool
which is actually
grass.
their thirst weaves
into nests where
the pictures emerge
hatched and idle
among the broken attempts
of our knocking.
