Good artists borrow
Great artists steal
A Picasso quote
I look in the mirror
I see myself
And yet I paint
With Picasso strokes
Picasso lines
Picasso designs
Am I possessed
By Picasso?
Do I have to dress
Like Picasso?
Evolution
Survival of the fittest
Am I only a part of the
Picasso food chain?
Does Picasso reach out,
A brush in hand,
Stroking a canvass
‘Til I understand?
Am I an emissary,
A foible for his art?
Do I face stagnation?
Do I play a part?
But no small parts
Only small actors
I retrace my steps
I look again in the mirror
I find my reality
Picasso is dead
And I live on

Picasso stood at the window looking at the shape of things to come.
A rage was building is his belly. Sharp remarks he made to his lover
Were eating at his gut.  She was useless to him now.
Stained by tears, she could not see him now. She would never understand him.
He was doing her a favor by leaving her.
Tomorrow her mother would come to collect her.
It would be a good day to visit his printer, he thought.
One woman crying and another screaming at him would be too much.

Late that night he came to her door and stood outside listening.
He felt like walking in and wordlessly taking her.
He knew she would submit.  But then, the act would make him soft.
Could he have her and still throw her out the next day?
He stood listening and thought.
Picasso, yes.  Picasso could do this and would do this.

But the moment passed.
The image of a bull folded on the arena floor bleeding out.
His face was that bull’s face.
In celebration of this tragedy he would stay
Locked away in his studio painting his sins
Without remorse and in willful defiance.

The next day the mother came.
He met her in the driveway.  He kissed her
And pressed her to him.
“You sent me a child” he said.
“Take her away and then return alone.”

Picasso
you give us things
which
bulge:grunting lungs pumped full of sharp thick mind

you make us shrill
presents always
shut in the sumptuous screech of
simplicity

(out of the
black unbunged
Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes
or

between squeals of
Nothing grabbed with circular shrieking tightness
solid screams whispers.)
Lumberman of the Distinct

your brain’s
axe only chops hugest inherent
Trees of Ego,from
whose living and biggest

bodies lopped
of every
prettiness

you hew form truly