Contents
Weimar Bauhaus, 1919
Warm Leatherette
Isolation
Weimar Bauhaus, 1919
Orange sun over slanting lines –
The content of a work of art,
He says, tracing the pink arc below,
Is determined by the living forces
Alive in the outer forms.
And we stare at his painting,
And nod and jot notes,
Knowing that
We can now draw squares
Crashing into each other,
Duels with slashing lines,
Blotches of color in bloom –
Ideas instead of plastic nudes.
Today we bring in junk –
Rusty saws, wooden planks,
Shards from bottles, pipes from stoves,
Wires, pins, ribbons, felt.
We dump it all on the floor,
And sift through the piles
For parts to force together
Into beasts of art.
In sculpting we borrow the forms:
A stack of cubes, large and small,
Globes engraved on a plaster plate,
Pyramids with slanted glyphs.
The master watches in his chair.
A stranger in a midnight suit
Slams diagrams on his desk:
Blocks of red, of yellow, and blue,
Of black and white and grey.
Some of us walk out the room.
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Warm Leatherette
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See the car crash in the ditch –
Here we are, inside the leather,
Melting with the seats.
The gear shaft pierces my thigh.
You stare at me with a wild gaze,
Like an Amazon with her spear poised.
Quick – can you still touch me?
Can our hands grasp across the gap?
Or can you offer your bloody wrist?
My feet are pulp.
Yours might be, too.
Try not to think.
Let us melt with the leather
And suck in the flame.
Angels can’t save us.
Stare at the trees
That tower over the window -
See the people
Surrounding us;
Will they reach in,
Or do the flames repel them?
Can they see us intertwined?
Are our faces too close?
Did you stain your make-up?
Ah. It will combust.
Die, my love - are you even trying?
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Isolation
The coffee’s cold in the milk-crusted cup;
He slips his cigarette in the mug.
The blank sheet on his desk
Blazes white through the dark like mozzarella
Save for the murky stain on the margins.
Outside, men scream
Over the screaming sirens
To silence the screams of fleeing crowds –
His head throbs at the sound of gunfire;
The volleys rattle through the blinds.
He stares at the stack of bleached saltines
In a crumb-littered corner of his desk.
Six left.
Six stale, gag-inducing squares of dead wheat.
Fires crackle below
While the battery of rifles crack
Into creaking machinery.
He paces over wasted wisps of hair.
In the gloom he’s forgotten the color
Of the suit that engulfs his frame.
His pale wrists shake, but
The only point that can pierce his skin
Is the ink-black pen in his hand.
Hunger wrenches his gut,
Twists it, drives in like nails.
Something pounds the door,
Howling out a name,
Demanding a body.
He stares through his overgrown locks
At the blazing paper, the wastebasket
Burning with crumpled light,
The pen bleeding ink on his fingers.
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