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I revisit that night and
I don't know why
I don't know why it took so long for you
to get there for one thing
I parked
Which took some time
But I found a spot
I won't be towed
And I walked to the hotel entrance
and waited
far too long
I took out a cigarette
And I bet I smoked the whole thing.

You never showed up which was strange.
Did I start to smoke another?
I thought that I was being polite
waiting on the curbside
Eventually R. and his girlfriend showed up
Super late
But polite which was no longer something to
expect from anyone anymore I found

They collected me and we went up to the
Penthouse
And there you were
Did you race like a daemon
breaking those presumptuous,
Certainly useless
Laws pertaining to Physics
just to get up Fairfax Avenue?
You ran to get to a party
that you were only invited to
because of me?
Without me.
This is not normal is it?

Your excuse upon my arrival was ******.
Idiotic.
I walked away.

On the balcony
I stood with you and R. again
We had avoided one another
throughout the night
yet always collided back
like opposing atoms.
Was that my doing?
I really think that that one was
your trick.

One of you had a joint
And I thought to myself
O *******
Thank God
It went around once
maybe twice
And then became a two-step
Without me
(Again!)
Back and forth between you two.

I was
standing there quietly waiting
like it was a game of jump rope
Watching for the moment
when the rope would let me in
My turn would come up eventually cuz
I'm standing right here.

I think one of you
R. probably
Handed me the joint
now dead
A stiff speck of rolling paper stuck between
*******
And the two of you
turned and walked away from me
Without a care
Brothers-in-arms

Well this isn't that sort of party.
Boots on the ground.
Blood in the sand.
Pack on your back.
Gun raised.
The stench of iron and salty offal.
Heroes in The Battle of Normandy.
I am not an Axis soldier and i know that you are not Allies

This Chateau is modeled after one
in the Loire
so the legend has it.
And this is a totally different thing altogether.

Wasn't your father, a fireman and you, his firestarter?
Didn't you watch him
put out your flames on the local tv news
while you lay on the carpet chin in hands, full color?

Did I follow you both back inside?
I think that I didn't
I hope that I didn't
How do you follow that?
I know that I walked to the balcony's edge
And settled into watching the rings to my right
The smoke rings from the cigarette
of the Marlboro Man
perching above Sunset Blvd.
what have I done?
how has it come to this so fast?

I may have joined in
Blowing rings from up above
I made O's very well in those days
One after another
One inside another
The billboard too
We're strange amigos we
Our rings float away unfurling
into thinner mists
While the white and red lights of cars
down below us
Rush into the sparkling night air
East
West
Somewhere other than here
My circles disappear above my head
His circles too.

Did he seem to you like a happy cowboy?
Rugged and determined
Those unsentimental eyes
Narrowing fearlessly at a blank manifest destiny
O
O
O
O
It's endless but I can keep up.

Looking at him from were I stand
I know that I will need
some of what he's got
to get through this
situation.
I thought that I had it on me.
I thought that I had packed it.
But somehow it's taken its leave or
Gone Missing.

He's not even real
This eminence to my right
Just wood and paper and
a mechanism making steam look like a plume of carcinogens
O
O
O
O
Yet I look at him a bit jealously regardless
Funny to feel that way about a billboard
Maybe cuz he's kind of a man
Maybe it's his hat
But it's true nevertheless
His rough hew cardboard evokes

the self determination at all costs
here above Sunset.

I will leave this penthouse
with its sick yellowy light
Dash into the elevator again
Make my escape
Light another and
Blow those rings.
Messaging
Mayday
Signaling my location
Above ground Terra Firma
Not underwater in depths that
cannot support life
R.'s been dead now almost twenty years
By his own hand.

Tomorrow I will try again
I hinted to myself
barely believing
I still have my lighter and what cigarettes are left in the pack.
i'm reporting to you here
From the women's bathroom stall at
(nam withheld) solo show
At the (name withheld) Gallery
Located on (name withheld) Blvd.

I have to say
that it comes as some relief to be sitting here
with my little plastic cup of sour wine
resting comfortably
on the cold tiled floor
I sit upon the plastic, seat cover down
the door closed and latched shut
What with my notes and my phone
and my purse over-full
Everything in here is the color of a rotting
peach, hard stone exposed
And I wonder what the color is
in the men's bathroom?
A bruised purplish tomato?
A dull pinky brownish mayonnaise?

It is very crowded out there
Way too many people
I came to see paintings painlessly
and I can't see a thing
but I can jostle with the best
except that I'm completely exhausted.

I know it sounds naive, sure
that I don't mind saying "Hi!" and
"Hey!"
without the whitest of smiles
But then what do you say after?
No worries.
I am charming.
I will do
all the work
I will make you laugh
Tantalize you with my wit
My Enthusiasm or Disdain.

I'll try to come back again
when this space is empty
perhaps commiserate leaning in at the counter
If I feel so inclined
Gage my conspiratorial tones
by the eyes that face me
Grim?
Resigned?
Expertly Professional?
and
it may in fact be quite lovely then
Now airy, the galleries.
Or it ill be a quick and disappointing
walkabout and out
I may not even need to say "Thank You."
because no one cares.

For now I will practice my breathing
And think about dead third generation
Abstract Expressionists like
Norman Bluhm
or Joan, my one true love

I'm pretty sure that on the floors out there
I've splashed my wine about
which will prove to be rather
unfortunate
for someone
who skids in kitten heeels.

Did I mention that Blankety Blank came with
yet another brand new spouse?
Bold as day.
She seems like all the others very nice
A mid-tone wheat-y blonde
Petite
So far her ready smile is a solid
and her interested gaze noteworthy
Too shy to wear the engrossed face
Her mouth is primly closed.
She seems polished and stands rather well
despite no one talking to her
after the Introductory Handshake
Her power may grow with time
what with that ring on her left finger.

I thought that the husband was still in jail
to be honest
or had fled to Barbados
to sell the same rolled oil on canvas
over and over
to different buyers and still keep the scratch
And the canvas
rolled, wrapped, and neatly stored
The artist seems to be fine with it
although she will never be paid.

Out there beyond this door
Stand
I can't get a proper count
because it's five people deep
and their backs are to the walls
I watched someone walk passed
something rather beautiful
although they didn't notice.

I for one nearly had my right eye
knocked out by a shock of
titanium white
that was totally
uncalled for.
It's on the eastern wall and a
scene stealer no doubt
Probably already sold
Probably hung already sold
and it's gonna make the cover of
everything.

Personally I'd like to take a knife
and slice it full across
remove the white offense
leaving it crumbled in a mass on the floor
Now a loser's cape bright enough to be seen
in darkness and stepped over lightly
like so many others.
Out there.

When I leave this stall
I'm gonna toss this cup and
I'm gonna run
and in so doing
quickly side step
another tangled bundle
I will look intensely to find the hero
instead, confronting as one does
dark filthy textiles
and thread counts
and only in the passing
In my beautiful raiment
A vision I am sure
will my eyes reveal
that the over familiar tangled bundle
the blanket is
no one's cape
but some exoskeletal remains left behind
and its creature, gone.
No ragged head.
No ***** feet.
No professional smile.
After the incident
we gathered in the reception area
Stalling
Making small talk
Vaguely excited and vaguely bored

We were leaning into
Little gala tables
Covered in white linen
Raised for conversation or
Fashionable idleness

Why look who’s here!
You were slipping by
Like a noblewoman
Floating in her day-dress
so the human machinations didn't show

Why it’s been thirty years if not a day!
It’s not like you were exactly moved
My friend, your friend
barely roused you
Are you plastic?
A formally once-was?
You looked at me as if your eyes were
Marbles
Made of glass and somewhat pretty,
Just for decoration
It was hard to say in such darkness
Your darkness in particular
It may have been the suit.

I know that they’ve fêted you here before.
A king returns!
Is it the magma chamber
for your imminence?
Or a mere
Alcove?

The face doesn’t really move
Much anymore
Forever frozen in a slight smugness
Your mouth that strikes me as
somewhat meta
if that’s at all possible
And it seems to be
A bit rude
A noirish marvel
A dark star

Funny you never once looked at me really
Never said Hello
Nor Good Evening
And the things that
I could have said
Do you remember how you tried to drill a hole into a poured concrete floor
with a cheap tool
while we laughed about dentistry
as opposed to *** practices
How I tried to find a cherry picker
through the yellow pages
on a Saturday afternoon
How you quizzed me about my practice and how I played dumb
How your dealer ate my dinner when I was looking to the right

But I remained silent
bemused more than disgusted
It has been a long time and
Why would that
forgotten phospherence
be me?

I wanted to say
Did you know
that that penthouse after-party
at the
Marmont
was one of the saddest nights of my life?
I leaned over the balcony and stared at the Marlborough Man
puffing rings onto Sunset Blvd.
Desperate.
How has it come to this I asked
shocked myself
This has all gone so wrong.
I looked down upon the street
watching the rings echo
and cars swerving off to nowhere

No amount of drink can fix this night
and they killed the joint without me
being boys.
One is now dead by hanging.
I’d have preferred the other.

But here you are.
Silent
with absent eyes
after all these years
I never opened my mouth
I couldn’t seem to configure the lips precisely
I don’t know why
Perhaps they refused to comply
despite my feathery efforts.
No need.
effie ebbtide Sep 2016
what do little stuckists cry
when their painting talents die?
"this isn't art! you are not artists!
i'm close to art, you are the farthest!"
satire.

— The End —