ARTIST RENDITION

Artist Rendition


Picasso paintings flash through my mind
Illustrative of the people I’ve known,
The people……… the men,
Okay, the lovers.……
Or the would-be-lovers that would have been
But could not be and should not be
But were there or almost there
Where I was and should not have been
At the time.

If that makes any sense.

Why Picasso, you might ask?
I’m glad you asked………..
It’s simple, really,
Let me explain.
(Are you sitting down?)

Ever since childhood,
Long ago and far away…….
Okay, yesterday,
Okay, look, it’s an on-going thing..……
I’ve always been convinced
That Picasso had a Humpty Dumpty fixation.

I mean, look,
(And I’m sure you’ll agree with me)
If we’re being honest…….
Don’t all of his painting subjects
Look like Humpty Dumptys
Who at one time,
Had to have been sitting on a wall somewhere?
I mean, really?

Love is like a badly cracked up egg
It can’t be unscrambled,
Can’t be un-scooped………….
You can’t remix the yellows and the whites
After you’ve separated them
Well, okay you can.………..
But then you have to bake a cake or something
(Or give yourself a facial.)

Damn! Why do I digress so much?!

The point I’m trying to make………
Is that all those Picasso people
Look like they’ve cracked up
On the sidewalk of love
And been repaired the best way he knew how
By the magic of art……..
(And unfocused strange eyes.)

Is that so hard a concept to grasp?
You seem like such intelligent people………….
I was sure you would understand
I was sure you could follow my reasoning
I was sure…………
(Who the hell am I talking to?!)

I was always a Van Gogh lover myself,
A Monet fan, a Renoir romanticist………
Van Gogh’s subjects were plain and simple folk,
Like me,
So ugly they were beautiful,
Their faces full of agony and passion,
Always searching for the beauty in the dirt
And falling for the lovers who were broken.

Every man I’ve ever loved was like a Picasso painting,
Oh, maybe not before, but afterwards….
One minute, strong and whole,
With the sidewalk beneath his feet………….
Head in the sky, smile on his face,
Reaching for me with those hopeful arms…………..

And the next thing I know,
I’m trying to fix him up
With Super Glue and Duct Tape,
Scooping his scrambled brains
Back into a skull like ancient sculpture,
Chipped and speckled like robin’s eggs
And hoping no one will notice what’s amiss.

I do the best I can…….
But there’s always something missing
When I’m done
Maybe the smile……………
Maybe the eye is over there,
The foot is dangling awkwardly………..
And I can never find the heart.

These memories hang,
In the museum which is my mind
Every wall, adorned,
Every space, filled up with art
So oddly out of place………..
Picasso pieces in a Van Gogh world.

It’s time to find a new hobby, perhaps
I’m beginning to think I’m a lousy artiste………..
An abstract Impressionist in a dark studio,
More skilled at finger painting than portraits in oil,
My end results, caricatures, chimeras and jokes……..
And all of my lovers, like bad scrambled eggs.










©By Voo
March 6, 2011
12:50 a.m.