11:11pm stare

By June Glasgow

I stare at a fruit basket of bananas and apples. When I don’t put on the music in the house, the place feels desolate. Has anyone seen a painter who paints the same dot day after day, year after year, on the same canvas? The painter is a genius in his perfection of the dot. The dot is covered in so much paint it matches stalactites in its magnificence. But no one will buy his art. It is never perfect, at least in his mind. The bananas and apples will rot soon in the basket if no one eats them. The trouble with being dead bored – the poster on the back of a van screams – why not be dead? It is easy with heroin -someone will have to take in the dead bodies of such men and women, shovel them into the ground like they are forsaken, and leave them be. 

Such is the way to go, for men, for women, in dress, in pants, all running down Sydney Rd or St like they are someone, or no one, and the dreams water down as rain and snow above certain altitudes. The farmers don’t care – why should they? Fog comes in winter and flowers spring. Even in winter, there are blossoms for wattlebirds, bee-eaters. The farmers are like sheep. I’d much prefer to herd goats.

There is another painter who believes body art is the superior art form. He paints a scar on his body every day and he has not taken a shower for years.One could imagine his body to be covered with scars, and the acrylic is so flaky over time. The painted wounds peel like paperback each time he moves. He is bleeding paint when he takes a bite out of an apple. He is bleeding when he is cold but he would not put on clothes so he huddles into a ball after he has painted the scar of the day. He never sleeps. One day he dies in his studio the same way he lived every day of his painter life, as though he was only prepping for dying every night. The stories of such people are many. Who will listen to them now.

The bananas ripen fast. They omit a certain smell that reminds me of condoms. The world is ready for contraception. De-population. De-politicalization. Or not. The apples are squashed at the bottom as in sties. Tell me about political writing today.

Ripping photos from magazines is hardly an original idea. But people still do it. They keep scrapbooks. No Mailer for Bukowski because too much of a Hemingway rip-off. Ha. Prejudices. Who doesn’t love them. The world needs sacrifice. The animals die every day. Planes crash. Cars blow up. Cell phones. My own time, is full of such dreadful mournings. The painter is more selfish, but perhaps without deliberate attachments. Paint a paper plane and dive. Water holds warmth better.

If tonight the cosmos explodes, where would you be? Unquote. No one said that. This will be the end of my rant. To be published immediately. War and peace. Old ideas. Or new ones.