the first and the single greatest
discouragement from writing
always begins when people
ask you about money,
not necessarily that they want
money, but that they see
art as frivulous, something
to do on the side... and sure enough
most of art is done that way...
on the side... but then such art, what it
becomes, is an expression of chance
opportunism... i mean...
surely there's enough people in
the world that can allow one
man to write a few ******* poems
out, it's not like they're conscripting
young men to join salvation army
in syria or anything as ridiculous as that;
but in all honesty i don't know what
it's all about - first they tell you
to not get in trouble, then they tell
you art belongs in a high school art room,
then they put artists on peddlestools
when all they produce are massive blobs
of colour in a random way, or
make a messy bedroom an art work,
or pickle a shark in a plastic aquarium,
open spaces, strings of metal, ropes
around rodin's kiss... all kinds of airy fairy
bits 'n' bobs... then mediocre seasonal
greetings poetry: rhyme christmas with
business with busy bees with jabberwocky
or something like that -
but indeed the foremost discouragement
people place on you is to get your worried
about money, concerned enough that
you begin to wonder - are they really
chasing their own tail and insert that
serpent-eating-itself into you?
i mean, all the italian renaissance masters
didn't bother with adorments and fashion
for proof of being rich - they had a motto,
only one: we're not a bunch dumb peacocks!
how about i paint you a mona lisa
and make myself shine like gold in rags?!
surely enough modern art, on that
massive scale, in galleries across countries
is obsessed with space, perhaps the lack
of space in real life, the almost claustrophobic,
the sheer number of people on the streets,
all it's fighting is technique and detail,
it's trying to be a child again,
it cannot stomach the fact that old techniques
were never passed on, or if they were
they are like a magician's deception -
whatever that means - i just think that
what modern art has become is almost
architectural - how on earth could
you elaborate on a square is beyond me -
unless of course it isn't, in which case
it's forceful intellectualism:
trying to squeeze out some orange juice
from an old & dry orange.