I’m the worst **** in the world
No one is worse than me.
For my next bride,
I shall marry the Queen of She
Ba (Academy presents her majesty.
Nominee gushes.
Audience applauds exhaustively.)
She will manhandle me,
Liquor on her breath,
Feathers framing ******.
Inflamed blossoms drenching submissions
She told me to delete
The photographs,
Even though there were many
Caught her beauty in amazing graces.
She hated me
For putting up so little struggle,
Obliterating her splendor
Indifferently.
I wanted to prove
Deserving of her love.
she dilly-dallied, distracted.
I cried pitifully, “Where’s my girlfriend?”
Chain of events to nothingness
My desolate existence
One deficit after another
Honed to fragile cutting-edge.
I wanted her to pleasure me
With subtle painful tinge.
She brilliantly found fault
Every conceivable way to blame.
She accused, “you fiddle in noodle factory.”
She was the true artist,
Dissatisfied with the sound
Of my heart beating.
You want to play hardball with the big boys?
You better show up with bulging intelligent creativity.
You complain about
Every infinitesimal gargantuan thing.
Nothing makes you happy.
I will always love you no
Matter how impossible.
Looking back,
You were an impossible chance.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=716179266&ref;=ts
Jerry Saltz Michael Reid Rubenstein: What I am about to write IS NOT A PUTDOWN of your art. You write, that "everything you see is priced under $950..." I am NOT sayiong you are a bad artist but I looked at some of those brush painting things: They are overpriced at that figure. There is no originality in the work; no spirit; no idea; no touch; risk; or whatever. I am sure many many people would not pay a dime for MY WORK! I would not pay fopr yours. Again, no disrespect intended; YOU posted it and made the offer; I thought maybe I'd buy something so I looked, is all ... ♥ Js Tuesday 12:30 PM

2 figures on stage in totally make believe situation
JERRY PEPPERZ hello Michael i noticed you withdrew your offer
MICHAEL REID RUBENSTEIN why are you acknowledging me if you think i have no originality no spirit no ideas no touch risk whatever?
JERRY PEPPERZ oh come on Michael hasn’t your skin grown tough enough by now to withstand a little criticism you want to run with the big guys you got to learn to play hardball (smiles smugly)
MICHAEL REID RUBENSTEIN a little criticism huh Jerry you’re a published big time nyc art critic nominated for prestigious awards advisor to celebrated exhibitions visiting critic at many esteemed universities friends with renown celebrities photographed with powerful dignitaries who the hell am i to utter a whisper in your direction (smells looks away)
JERRY PEPPERZ now come on Michael i was just doing my job no need to take it so personally like i wrote What i am about to write IS NOT A PUTDOWN of your art (picks hair from shoulder flicks it)
MICHAEL REID RUBENSTEIN Jerry you got a way with words (pause) i’m just a stupid-*** painter who doesn’t stand a chance against a shrewd critic like you i think i’ll just keep zipped up and quiet (makes eye contact)
JERRY PEPPERZ but i asked you when i re-friended you on FB to be more vociferous and participatory i guess i didn’t realize how valueless your artwork is please forgive me (sniffs finger)
MICHAEL REID RUBENSTEIN didn’t do your homework huh Jerry? i keep asking myself why you didn’t send me a private message why you needed to take an earnest exchange of ideas and openly deprecate me heck you’ve never even seen my work in person your casual remarks dispute my entire life’s work credibility authenticity what you think you were being clever or cute Jerry you know how to be vicious i realize you don’t become a famous critic by being nice to people critics gain popularity because they’re ******* with razor-sharp slandering tongues you want to hear what i think i’ll tell you you’re a balding insecure little man who enjoys beating up on small time artists (is it all right with you if i call myself an artist) like me you know how to take a person’s complete career and trash it with a few choice words you can be rather mean Jerry (grinds teeth)
JERRY PEPPERZ i apologized now let’s not turn this into a regrettable incident (rubs hands together)
MICHAEL REID RUBENSTEIN at least i’m doing something Jerry instead of sitting on my **** condemning others i wonder if my work were hanging in Larry Gagosian’s Gallery and collected by Charles Saatchi how fast you’d change your tune you’re nothing more than a puppet of the rich and if you try to sue me for these remarks you’ll get nothing since you made **** sure my paintings are undeserving with your haughty dismissal
JERRY PEPPERZ would you excuse me i’m late for a lunch date with Alec Baldwin this little repartee will have to end bye Michael (turns looks down checks cell phone)
MICHAEL REID RUBENSTEIN Jerry can anything good or positive come out of this or does your mind not work that way i mean you’re a revered critic i need you in my corner
JERRY PEPPERZ you really think i’m an ******* don’t you (looks down rechecks cell phone)
MICHAEL REID RUBENSTEIN like i mentioned Jerry i’m just a stupid-*** painter not a judge or brilliant critic what i think is irrelevant what you did was cruel sadistic abusive
JERRY PEPPERZ get over it let it go just drop it Michael i really need to run Alec doesn’t like to be kept waiting he’s buying (grabs coat walks like he needs to go to bathroom fast stage right then suddenly reappears) don’t let me find out i underestimated you who do you think you are i’ll thoroughly destroy you (exits immediately)
MICHAEL REID RUBENSTEIN (shakes head) sheesh

Jerry Saltz
Jerry Saltz September 8, 2010 at 9:22am
Subject: I am sorry.
Michael,
I read your comment.
I am sorry. I did not mean to cause you any pain.
I went back and deleted by commnet to you. I will now delete the comment i made to you about it.
You can do whatever you want with your comment to me; it is up to you.
Thank you,
Jerry "clever," "cute," "vicious," "*******," "slandering," "balding,"
"insecure," "little," "beats up on small time artists," "take a person’s complete career and trash it with a few choice words," Saltz

There's a broken banjo in my birthright,
It was tied to were I wonder
Hidden between John Henry's Hammer,
and the hobbling post on Humble Hill.

I've walked this far on the blame in my grit,
pushed to by tailwind sunsets,
So kick me a mea culpa kneejerk
hardball, and sandstone my stonewall.

Forget storms in the cradle,
I found dustbowls in my waiting room,
Chasing rabbits in a wordwind,
plinking at the vermin as
they rolled into town with the rest of us,

*****, but soaring, Carrion pigeon in the clouds
not getting caught up in admiring the reflections
in all the silver linings,
Just... Flying.

narcissus couldn't manage
the glory of wax work wings.
But Icarus knew real beauty.
He felt it.
When he hit the ground

The heat of floating zeroes
blasting his broken bones
into the obsidian of desert floors...
See, angels can be as jealous as God.

Anywhere can be as lonley as the long plains
of Kansas,
Empty canvas trampled by dog and pony shows
as cowboys rode mules muddy miles
through ****** brambles
to drive herds of bulldogs and lions
from the hunting grounds of dragons
to the safety of home
from High, High, Horses.
Under the shadows of eagles.

But the devil never waits at the crossroads, people.
He lays in lies.
And six shooters,
Under Dog Collars,
with the blood and scars
of everyday life,
and the beaten bodies of
seraphim, fallen to **** the well,
with their phoenix ash.

Sheep and shepherds are never friends,
Ones happiness is the other's hunger.
Dont get me wrong, wolves get hungry too,
But at least their honest about the arrangement.

"the future is ******* freaky",
i say to myself as i'm lying and leaking
as the years have gone by
i've done nothing, my oh my
i don't know what i plan on doing
i have no idea where i'm going
so just hold me close
i think i need a stronger rope
but you outwit that thought tonight

my thoughts take me to weird places
weird faces and distorted pictures of distorted places
i've never been and probably won't ever go to
you smile because you know it's the truth
unless we pick up now and forget everything
we're gonna be stuck in this cave with our aching
and that's no way to live, no, not at all
i thought you would be there when i'd fall
but you only ever knew how to play hardball
but please ease up and answer me when i call

before the fireflies
made an appearance

about the time cicadas
began their buzz

when the men were lighting
after dinner ****

and moms clanging dishes,
a noisy resentment

I was on the street, with brothers
named Harry and Johnny

playing baseball, mostly
missing our catches

it had not registered in our grade school heads
dusk was not good light for hardball

nor had we learned what it was like
to see anything die

save the bees we suffocated in jars
(forgive us our sins, Father),

though that night, the last day of school,
the stars were all aligned

IF the creator wanted us to see
mangled mortality:

he came around the corner of
Vandenburg and Vine

in his graduation gift--a hot new Chrysler,
all chrome and crank

the telephone pole he hit didn't see him, or
complain--it remained straight, tall

when the driver went through the windshield
and his skull introduced itself to wood and pitch

my dad was the first to come through
the door, though other fathers followed

I recall colors, though muted
by the fading light

red, red, pink, even white and gray and blond--his hair,
flattop still in place

well, it was on the half head I saw
from across the street

where Harry, Johnny and I were conscripted
to stand

my mother brought a yellow towel,
to stop bleeding I thought I heard

but my father never used it, telling her
instead to bring the green army blanket

which he draped over the boy's body the very second
before we saw the ambulance lights

by then, the fireflies were beginning
their dance

we were told to go inside, to hide our
eyes from the body on a stretcher

the slamming of the ambulance doors,
which I watched through our window

while my father used Lava soap to wash his hands;
then my mother pulled the drapes

blocking from view the pole, the crushed car,
and the glow of fireflies drifting above it all

we started school during
the Korean "police action"
like extra syllables made
murderous mayhem more
palatable than calling it
another dreadful WAR,
half a decade after we won
the last one

those of us who survived yet another
crazy Asian WAR are now fading fast

I take in news of our passing
with my morning coffee, reading
the obits like they were the sports
scores

and every one I see whose numbers
are smaller than mine remind me I
am playing Russian roulette with the clock,
every hour

were it within my power,
I'd spin those hands backwards
to a day before cybertime

when Donny, Johnny and I went
to the park to toss a hardball into
well pocketed gloves, and discovered
the delights of peanut butter and
marshmallow cream sandwiches

back, back to a day Ike was pres,
and I would watch The Twilight Zone
with religious fidelity--back, to a time
so ancient Maris had not yet slammed in
number 61, chipping away
at the Babe's immortality

some told us the end was near,
and death by fierce fire was a reasonable fear
long before the missiles of October
and JFK's intrepid blockade

but the mushroom clouds never did appear,
and here I am with Medicare card in hand,
living in the same land where men with funny
hair make ominous "tweets"

and Manchild dictators with tiny peckers
lob missiles into the sea

wishing Clark Kent were still around
ready to don his cape and take a leap
and a bound, and save us
from ourselves

but first he would have to find a phone booth
in which to change...

/because you could really get a square, or any coherent mundane geometric narrative of re- re- re-... out of a *******... or tell someone with a size 11 shoe, that a size 9 will be, just as comfortable... and while the English language goes to ****, thank **** it has no mother and has no son in the guise of me... with the current lexi- of non-cis non-binary yadda yadda abracadabra... a return to stern, dog breeding terminology... pedigree, mongrel... hybrid... can't really as the semite for an authentic opinion, came from a people that sat on their ***** for long watching chickens walk down a village dirt road... anything to redefine, those half-***** screaming into a tin-can tied to a string... after all, Greenwich... outside of the English speaking world, we like to call the natives: Greenwich bellybuttons, or rather,  bellybuttons of the world: pępki świata... as a person of acquired tastes, it's turning into a heartache, seeing english so deformed... perhaps by both technology and youth... a Frankenstein to behold... and when in Paris, did I speak any french? not really, but I had the audacity to cling to an Italian girl who could, and a Russo-Canadian girl, who also could... but you still managed to meet people who understood that english,  not french, was and is the lingua franca of tourism... obviously not so much when it comes to commerce... and banking, is not exactly a commerce... neither is the media... e.g.? re.: Münster... on the first day 3 people (not including the attacker) were killed and 30 injured... on the second day 2 people were killed (including the killer) and 20 injured... who the hell still thinks that the media juggernaut is a trebuchet to fling a Meursault into the limelight? it's naive to think that such people are seeking fame... a ******* butter knife and a glass of beer will always be more "famous"... and the man who discovered beer, well... good luck reading Plato... comes the staring into the abyss, and the abyss not staring back, whispering a words: ad absurdum counter ad nauseam...


too much love poetry, too much love
poetry that isn't risqué,
plain mundane out of fear...
a fear of being found dead 2 weeks
later...
not mundane to say the leat,
just: a zoological observation
of a lion, rather than stark naked
on th savannah...
or thereabouts...
                but to have to exhaust
poetry for love? this sort of love?
i prefer the memory of candyfloss
sitting on a stump of wood...
        maybe that's why i find the current
movies exhausting,
           bankrupt writing,
or rather,  current movies an modern
art, minimalism, minimalism,
large open spaces replaced by
   strobe c.g.i.
point being, when did the fallacy
of subjectivity come into
contact with dialectics?
   just asking,  because i somehow
cannot conceive an objectivity of one,
in that,  not having to cite
a bibliography, third part sources...
can't a subjective opinion
be just as true as an objective
herd nod?
    mesmerising that
     subjectivity should be deemed
as sub-dialectics,
           bellow engagement...
somehow contaminated...
are pronouns in that respect
subjective? silly question...
chess pro noun: or solving crosswords...
pro nouns, meaning:
in favour of remembering
  names of objects...
            and further into the exposed
muddle of atomised grammar...
objectivity is when you stress
   pre nouns...
   otherwise, someone is to be found
vehemently stressing a pivot
word, and that gives him or her away?
all of a sudden objectivity is
regarded with more respect,
      objectively, perhaps talking
about things with a blank canvas,
orientating oneself where
you're not allowed to use nouns...
the closest you can get to asking
a co-worker for a hammer on
a construction site is to hum a hmm...
is that objectivity?
        hence the classically mundane
narrative...
   because i just wanted to say
that a richness of one's own memory
creates a cinematic void...
i can't estimate how many hours
I've sat drinking, more entertained
by my memories, than any recent film...
just like today, having refreshed
a pale nectarine kitchen with
lemon peel... i already started thinking
about the corridor...
                  but before that, during
the day...
    why is spring in England,
why is summer in England...
  so... ******?! i wish there was
a better word for it...
     god i've missed continental spring...
i haven't experienced, continental
spring for... 22 years...
                  deep continental spring,
past Germany,  above the Balkans
below the Baltic...
      22 years of 22 springs,
spent on that bog of a sinking ship
known as England...
rain... rain... more rain...
     dampness and 21 Beehive Ln.
Gants Hill just across the synagogue
above the estate agent...
    dampness and those *******
   woodlice...
          22 years having spent each mid
April to late May under
earl Grey the ******* ponce...
                     no one I sleep better
in this part of the world,
the body has synchronised itself
with the fauna and a heritage past
and the mind seems revived...
to the scents of waking trees,
   to the sight on national news
of bears waking from their wintry
hibernation in the Tatra mountains...
ecologists testing mosquito repellents,
anti-rabies snacks dropped into forests
for foxes to eat...
         and only the one direction
traffic of English... comes a headache
having to listen to it, comes easier writing
about it...
              hence the old woman decided
to take my case of the presidium...
tomorrow i'll have my photo taken,
take my British passport,
declare myself as myself before
a bureaucratic piece of paper
with a signature, wait less than two weeks
and get my Polish citizen identification card...
plan B...
       just in case...
          just in case it becomes normal
for spring and seeing so many
children playing outside the 2nd level
balcony overlooking a graveyard...
boys as old as 6 / 7 playing with
wooden swords...
     teenagers sitting on benches
in the cool night till 10:30 pm...
                               and everything else
worth living for, lived in a small town...
far away from the London rats...
     far away from a country that understands
bilingualism as schizophrenia...
              maybe i am mad,
but the ones who think I am, are no more
sane...
                than me...
                                first thing's first...
with a snap of the fingers,
i can retain my dual-nationality,
and perhaps, after a while,
after I stop finding the study of psychiatry
by studying psychiatric blunders
a bit boring...
            and say auf wiedersehen to
ol' ***** 'n' Charlie Ambrose...
                                                 honestly,
england's worth of its very misery...
    its hardball when attached to the mainland,
a nation of thespians,
     hard this, soft that,
                   nuns instead of frisky youth...
or at least: for the joy of life
at first, prior to the sentiments of
adulthood, and shackles,
as was once done in a spring field
or on top of a hay stack;
              which... makes it doubly
uncomprehensive...
     ad to why someone's father might
force himself to forget his mother tongue. ..
with his son not being able to speak it,
suddenly reaching for
         a bomb making kit, a knife,
a car or an assault rifle...
            that sort of grievance?
as the old testament ends with a hope...
not till the heart of the son
turns to the father, and likewise
reciprocated...
                       shame for the collateral
damage... truly, shameful...
but you'd think that a son could
realise his beef,  is with his immigrant father
and not the host nation...
            because a return to the past
or, the body to the land,
the land to the mind, and mind to
the tongue, and the tongue to the breath,
and the breath to the soul,
   and the soul to the forefathers...
          kinda amrican, wouldn't you say so,
Herr Jefferson?

Subsequently the alchemist:

1963-

And a time traveler
Can take a walk
Back into the past...

Dallas- Dallas-

Time slowed down,
But at the same moment-

It was moving way too fast:

In music alone-

The Beatles
Hadn't arrived yet:

And Elvis
Was no longer
Such a sure bet.

But everybody loved
Watching TV-

It was America- 1963.

And well,
To me,
In looking back
Into the history-

It wasn't that
There was all that much
About Kennedy:

But it seemed somebody
Was really playing hardball-

An early version
I would suppose,
Of "Shock and Awe."

And there was just something
About Lee Harvey Oswald:

That just didn't feel right-

And the feeling
Continues on into the now:

Historically-

If not some conspiracy...

Just like a merry-go-round.

But it was America- 1963.

Yes, it was... America.

America-

America-

America- 1963.

If we are a compassionate land
That genuinely cares about others,
We shouldn't separate families
And rip kids out of the arms of their mothers

And then place them in foster care,
Or in what John Kelly would call
"Whatever," thus allowing the Trump
Administration to play hardball.

Refugees seeking asylum:
Look at how we cruelly mistreat them.
They follow the rules and knock on our door,
And then look at how we greet them?

Ah, so being cruel is supposed
To be a deterrent. That will explain
Why certain leaders feel that they
Can justify being inhumane.

The children--one was just a year old--
Are often taken to different states!
In both the mother and in the children,
Imagine the trauma that this creates.

And then Trump further muddies the waters--
Playing the usual Trumpian game--
And writes an obnoxious tweet saying
That Democrats are the ones to blame!

My country 'tis of thee, it's not our liberty
Or our humanity of which we sing.
Don't spout that righteous stuff, for we have had enough.
If it's all just a bluff, to what can we cling?

-by Bob B (5-26-18)

Life today has suddenly changed.
Everyone seems so distant and estranged!
We have no choice but to keep ourselves restrained.
...confined to our homes, away from the crowd
As if mankind has been buried in a shroud.

The streets are empty, and so are the malls.
...our enemy, the virus, is playing hardball.

Fighting a battle with Corona isn’t simple.
It’s like fighting your enemy without arms and pistols.
Around the world, the fatalities are rising.
Where or on whom is our enemy disguising?

Counting days, until life rebounds.
...When we can go back to our schools
And be out in the playgrounds.
When there be no one to check us from running around.
No grief, no sorrow, and no loss to surmount.

Ignore me if you will,  I've tried.
I think the thinkers may be wrong
About this thing free agency,
Hardball being better since Curt Flood
And who are the owners anyway
To tell us where our interests lie
As if some overbearing deity
Got jealous of the lesser gods,
Or even me, with my
Great Pleasure in the flesh,
Disputing life and destiny,
Not waiting on a starry crown
When thorns will make a fitting laurel.