Tags: art as object, art as experience, ekphrastic, writing of art, sharing of art, tercet, surprising last line
This is a piece I wrote with respect to someone very close to me, very closely following after “Having a Coke with You”. I’ll leave off the analysis here, but link a few of the relevant art pieces.
Having a Boba with You
James Bowden
(or really any other drink, even the fancy water I tried
in that Japanese-named but France-inspired tea room,
us lounging around like poorly dressed Englishwomen,)
is quite lovely, moreso than going to San Sebastian, Chile, New York City, Argentina
partly because I’ve never been, so I am left postulating,
partly because in your vertically-striped shirt you look like a ridiculouser version of Picasso’s Head of a Woman
and I’m glad he’s dead already because otherwise I might’ve sliced his other ear off
over you and everyone knows such things never go well for the muse;
haven’t you read Dorian Gray?
though knowing you, your voice would vibrate through his skull forcefully enough to flood dopamine anyway
and maybe then he’d draw you as vibrant strokes exploding chaotically from the center,
kinda like the canvas I have that the Blue Man Group spit paint all over.
it’s hard to believe when I’m with you that people visit museums in search of art
when beside four solemn Head of Buddhas is your shaking laughing face,
them sacred to nations generations, this here poem your portraiture debut
so forgive me for being so tired the first time we went that you thought I disliked art:
I’d biked to afternoon tea despite not sleeping and you hadn’t put me onto coffee yet.
we perused one museum twice in just this past week,
and if still you are not convinced, haven’t you seen the way I grin at you?
I mean, come on. you’re the worst kept secret that ever I’ve had.
-- --
P.S. if that Bon Iver album I sent you is “quite lovely” then surely I need a new vocabulary
so here is this poem full of poem paintings book sculpture songs a thousand words apiece
and still falling short as Frank O’Hara’s impressionists.
Picasso’s Head of a Woman in the Norton Simon; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Head of Buddhas in the Norton Simon (for this one just Google “Head of Buddha Norton Simon” and you’ll find a multitude); said Bon Iver album, For Emma, Forever Ago.
Next up is the titular (to the anthology) poem!