"arbus" poems
Photography,
Photo journalistic,
Everyday, realistic.
Commercial, architecture, landscape, artistic,
Industrial, fashion, ethnographic, pornographic.
Big Brother, fallace, stealer of souls, vouyer.
News seller, instant gratifier, man pleaser, woman abuser.
Barthes, Sontag, Cindy Sherman,
Virginia Woolf, Warhol. Weegie, Francesca Woodman,
Leibovitz, Adams, Arbus, Tina Modotti,
Nan, Evans, Hoffer and even the Paparazzi.
Cheap ***** digital manipulator, image poser,
Center fold, coupons, Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe.
Where did they go:
Lifeless paper product, painter's picture mess,
C-type, digital archival,
Sepia, black and white, hard drive retrival.
Image addict,
Image taker,
Image maker,
image seller,
image buyer.
Newspaper, magazine, graphics and ads,
TV, dreams, even the trash.
Billboards, subways, phones and buses:
Utopia:
Surreal, crop, stretched and air brushes.
Modern ideal.
Surface manipulator.
Brain conditioner.
Consent manufacturer.
Oh Photography,
I got you in my eye.
A few thousand dollars,
A BFA, A critical scholar.
Or maybe a nerd,
Just boys with toys.
Telephoto genitals, with motor drive action.
Studio lights, umbrella traction.
Oh Photography,
You proprietor of obscene.
Detailed, de-sensitized.
Court ordered, jury analyzed.
Click, image, copy, edit, paste, print or post.
Myfacespace, twitter, flicker,
An internet media overdose.
Pry, spy, your friend's friend's acquaintances.
Parties, picnics, reunions and shows.
Visits, vacation, style, shoes and clothes.
Pics, photos, images, jpegs and giffs.
Snap shot, portrait, panoramic, Kodak kiss.
Exacerbate:
Divorce, break-ups, jealousy, envy, love and fears.
Devour and captivate society for years.
Slaves to Western and Capitalist desires,
Destruction of Earth with psychological, monetary empires.
Jan 11, 2010
Jan 11, 2010 at 7:05 AM UTC
_the mythic Esther notwithstanding_;
the only Jewish Miss America was
Bess Myerson; Miss New York, &
exemplar of classic beauty c.1945
studying German philosophy
living on the upper east side;
surrounded by rich Park Avenue
Jews - spewing Nietzschean
Nihilism causing them to _shudder_
at the thought of relatives dragged
from homes never to be seen
again; they don't want to hear
that **** - my buddy Mingus Jr.
bringing mechanical bebop to
his constructed paintings;
on
the other hand, I'm going on & on
about Heidegger & Schopenhauer,
Brian Eno, David Bowie, Hegel,
****** Goebbels & Riefenstahl;
my paintings are violent; as if
Jack the Ripper & James Whistler
were the same guy; all women are
beautiful by nature, but I would've
done it different - put the snooch
on top, the udders on the bottom,
*** in front, arms & legs splayed
out to the sides; yes, that's better,
Diane Arbus, Ann Frank, Hannah
Arendt, Dori Bernstein, Alison
Linefsky & Eva Hesse are more
beautiful than Lilith & Eve mixed;
I hate being called a antisemitic;
it's a painful reminder that at the
moment I don't have a Jewish gf
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 2:17 PM UTC
Mishima, Plath, Arbus & Teasdale
are the sacred four of invincible silence,
alone as Isadora danced
& Martha made it w/ Noguchi
& he built sets for her all-American dance,
lifting her legs showing off her hairy ****
I love the smell of poets’ cooch
& he-man values that overthrow
the stale shoes of grandfathers
and mothers the world over
& when we arrive on the Korean Peninsula
we shall once again call it Joseon---
Don’t torture our kpop stars---
(ironically called idols but treated like slaves)
The women we love
have had extensive cosmetic surgery
To make them beautiful
& worthy of near-religious devotion---
Suicide is a viable option
when ur depressed & in the limelight;
Where do u go after dark,
to some smoky ***** den---
It’s been days, months, years since I saw u last----
after the sinking of the Sewol
that destroyed an entire generation
of innocent lives---
Come home to me where I will love u
like a newborn puppy & make hot cocoa for u
In winter & ice-cold lemonade in summer---
It’s been months since I saw u last
& we showered together
washing away our sins to be reborn as angels
after our mutual suicide---
Dec 22, 2017
Dec 22, 2017 at 5:08 PM UTC
There's a being seated
at the window...the breaking
ends of perception mothering
their pearl.
Its prayerful poise electrifies
the passing light of day...
hideous and beautiful
blending blindly.
Purple with majesty, as a distant
mountaintop crammed through
the eye of a needle...pointedly
soul through the driftings of its
original score.
Unlit senses that can't place
their miraculous conveyance...
entering and exiting the same window
simultaneously.
Aware that it's aware...there are troubles
in paradise of only supreme Authoring,
as latent creation forthwith heartbreak.
Pounding its very chest...with oceanic
spanning--faces upon faces of The Deep,
Diane Arbus photoing a featureless form.
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 11:39 AM UTC
The air breathes foul in fog
As ,
they flocked with fleeting
extensions
of wanna be arms
The UFO'ed
realizations
had borders bleached
by
sun in tide's time
You find eyes
staring
into iota's intensity
you . . .
thought tepid in turmoil
Transient in permanence
bleeding
to the knife's known edge
emotionless
in the apartment's aperture
Drift away in the sadness of
Diane Arbus
whose facts flee from
fiction
"My favorite thing is to go where I've never been "
Apr 13, 2017
Apr 13, 2017 at 12:57 AM UTC
RIP: The greatest show on earth
The announcement came:
This was the last year for the circus–
The working man's circus,
The last ******* child of Ringling Brothers
And P.T. Barnum
Good, my wife said
Think about the animals.
I nod in absent agreement -
But I am at Coney Island as it might have been, once.
And watching amusement parks in Celeron, Bay Ridge, the Palisades and a hundred others places vanish -
One by one like altar candles extinguished before the recessional.
I am a young boy staying up late tearing through Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked this Way Comes"
while everyone else in the house is sleeping.
I am at a City Lights book store in San Francisco
Where Lawrence Ferlinghetti is sharing his cotton candy with Diane Arbus and Allen Ginsburg
I am listening to "Take Five" in stereophonic sound.
I am behind the Big-Top
with Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens
trying to catch a glimpse of the show through the shadows -
Then being told to get away by a large sweaty man who doesn't smile.
I am eating peanuts salted in the shell.
I am holding my daughters tiny hand
while my son hides behind me–
a clown is walking by.
Nov 17, 2020
Nov 17, 2020 at 5:01 AM UTC