SHARKFORUM: OPINION WITH TEETH

SHARKFORUM: OPINION WITH TEETH tag:www.sharkforum.org,2009-10-16://1 2013-01-22T21:15:00Z Movable Type 4.21-en Brandl Opening Painting-Installation Zurich tag:www.sharkforum.org,2013://1.2694 2013-01-22T21:08:42Z 2013-01-22T21:15:00Z

It is finally the time! After some years in the making, the room-filling painting-installation based on my PhD dissertation is opening at Jedlitschka Gallery in Zurich. You are cordially invited to the opening, I'd love to see you there. -------- Mark Staff Brandl My Metaphor(m), Painting-Installation 28 Feb. - 18 April, 2013 Opening Reception: 28 Februar, 5 pm - 9 pm the artist will be present (as well as on Saturday, 2 March) Laudatio/Opening Speech: 28 February 7 pm Dr Philip Ursprung, Professor Art and Architectur History at the ETH Zürich Discussion with the Artist: Friday 22 March, 7 pm with Dr Gerhard Mack, Editor and Critic for Art and Architecture at the NZZ am Sonntag Finissage /Closing Reception: Thursday, 18 April, 5 pm - 9 pm The artist will be present.

Mark Staff Brandl http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/

It is finally the time! After some years in the making, the room-filling painting-installation based on my PhD dissertation is opening at Jedlitschka Gallery in Zurich. You are cordially invited to the opening, I'd love to see you there.

--------

Mark Staff Brandl My Metaphor(m), Painting-Installation 28 Feb. - 18 April, 2013

Opening Reception: 28 Februar, 5 pm - 9 pm the artist will be present (as well as on Saturday, 2 March)

Laudatio/Opening Speech: 28 February 7 pm Dr Philip Ursprung, Professor Art and Architectur History at the ETH Zürich

Discussion with the Artist: Friday 22 March, 7 pm with Dr Gerhard Mack, Editor and Critic for Art and Architecture at the NZZ am Sonntag

Finissage /Closing Reception: Thursday, 18 April, 5 pm - 9 pm The artist will be present.

]]> Brandl, Painting, Eshu tag:www.sharkforum.org,2013://1.2693 2013-01-16T18:43:52Z 2013-01-16T19:01:08Z

Mark Staff Brandl http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/

Here is another painting from my upcoming installation in Zurich. It is of Eshu, the spirit of the crossroads in Yorùbá. Also known as Èṣù, Legba, Eleggua and identified with St. Anthony of Padua, Saint Michael or Santo Niño de Atocha in Santería. Èṣù is a spirit of Chaos and Trickery, and plays frequently by leading mortals to temptation and possible tribulation in the hopes that the experience will lead ultimately to their maturation. He is both young and old simultaneously. In my PhD dissertation I replaced the metaphoric figure of Oedipus with Eshu in my rewrite (misprision) of Harold Bloom's theory of misprision.
Oil and enamel on canvas.]]>
One of Eshu's patakis or stories of the faith: "Eshu was walking down a road one day, wearing a hat that was red on one side and black on the other. Sometime after he entered a village which the road went through, the villagers who had seen him began arguing about whether the stranger's hat was black or red. The villagers on one side of the road had only been capable of seeing the black side, and the villagers on the other side had only been capable of seeing the red one. They soon came to blows over the disagreement which caused him to turn back and rebuke them, revealing to them how one's perspective can be as correct as another person's even when they appear to be diametrically opposed to each other. He then left them with a stern warning about how closed-mindedness can cause one to be made a fool."]]> Painting tag:www.sharkforum.org,2013://1.2692 2013-01-13T14:47:48Z 2013-01-13T15:01:18Z

One of my smaller paintings for my upcoming Painting-Installation in Zurich, a tribute to Velasquez. Oil on canvas.

Mark Staff Brandl http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/

Oil on canvas.]]> End of the World? Nah, it's only a renowned international art exhibition! tag:www.sharkforum.org,2012://1.2691 2012-12-09T12:30:40Z 2012-12-09T12:44:21Z

My Essay in comic form for the cultural magazine Saiten, St.Gallen, Switzerland. Dezember 2012.

Mark Staff Brandl http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/

]]> . Operators, Manipulators, Petty Bureaucrats Business As Usual At The Whitney Biennial tag:www.sharkforum.org,2012://1.2690 2012-12-03T03:30:19Z 2012-12-03T03:38:14Z

The Shark http://www.wesleykimlerstudio.com

The question is why these people -how were they chosen? Michelle Grabner is at least understandable, a sturdy if somewhat limited painter, and more notably an art world operator both here and abroad extraordinaire, she has inadvertently demonstrated via her multifaceted ' art career' the de Kooning dictum 'isn't it amazing how much you can do with so little". The problem I have with Michelle -whom I personally like, is, that aside from the fact she has a history here of championing really bad painting with a focus on aping what is internationally 'hot', is what a partisan power broker she has always been, bringing to Chicago via Suburban/ Poor Farm a steady stream of trending international fare -while presenting from here a rather narrow, myopic, self serving polemic as to what has currency, recently from the very painting department she heads. (think Reeder /Zukerman exhibitions at the MCA -which had her fingerprints all over both of them) Unfortunately, the middle brow academic abstraction in various guises she supports -from colorfield bland to dorm art quality histrionics has been played as if it were the only game in town (think Grabner, Ledgerwood, Gerber, Reeder). While coincidentally, (or not !) over the course of almost two decades of this dynamic, of a small circle of people, institutionally supported, holding sway here, interest in Chicago art -painting in particular- has not surprisingly plummeted at the international level. So, now along with ethical considerations of an artist curating her friends into a big show, comes the distinct possibility that the art world is going to experience the tedium of mediocrity, the tepid de-skill that has hung around the neck of the Chicago art world (and everywhere else) like a putrefying albatross for years at the Whitney. In other words, NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS! That there exists the potential of a show featuring some really bad crap may even be, the desired goal given the idiotic/imbecilic art world of today Michelle is such a purveyor of. Still, I am going to hope for the moment she transcends her milieu, and surprises me. Showing first of all more painting, and while rising to the occasion, confounds her friends while delighting her foes in a demonstration of shocking integrity showing not the usual suspects who she has championed in the past, but rather what is actually skilled, particular , original and fierce from here. Anthony Elms, that, is far more problematic, and nothing less than Kafkaesque: the inexorable creep forward of a petty bureaucrat... why this guy, this career mired in mediocrity at every turn? From failed artist to silly projects to reams of mediocre art writing,) going from an entry level position at Gallery 400 to another entry level assignment at the very small Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia. Its difficult to imagine they couldn't have done better. As for the film gentleman, echoing Werner Herzog's sentiments concerning his own participation in the last biennial, why is it other disciplines feel the need to invade the small realm of visual art? Last time I checked there were plenty of venues for any kind or type of effort in that particular medium.]]> The Next Documenta Should be VISUAL! tag:www.sharkforum.org,2012://1.2689 2012-12-02T15:16:54Z 2012-12-02T15:21:48Z

I always liked Jens Hoffman's image for his critique of documenta. I have made one myself for my thoughts about it and all big international shows. Please spread it around!

Mark Staff Brandl http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/

I always liked Jens Hoffman's image for his critique of documenta. I have made one myself for my thoughts about it and all big international shows. Please spread it around!]]> Poetry of the Week: "The Noir Wife," "Hives," and "Rose Red, on Sibling Rivalry" by Susan Slaviero tag:www.sharkforum.org,2012://1.2688 2012-10-03T22:55:09Z 2012-10-03T23:48:53Z

Susan Slaviero's full-length collection of poetry, CYBORGIA, is available from Mayapple Press. Recent chapbooks include A Wicked Apple (Hyacinth Girl Press), Selections from The Murder Book (Winner of Ghost Ocean Magazine's 2011 Chapbook Contest), and Apocrypha (Dancing Girl Press). Her work has appeared in journals Fourteen Hills, Rhino, Oyez Review, Artifice Magazine, PANK and elsewhere. Susan has a BA in English/Professional & Creative Writing from Lewis University. She moonlights as a literary editor for blossombones and as a performer with the Chicago Poetry Bordello. THE NOIR WIFE She's smackleg, gunbody brilliant. She knows how to pin a man with her tailbone, pen him nitrogen-blind like a block of dry ice. She's Lauren Bacall with a cigarette stuck to her gums, lipstick smeared on her pretty cupid's bow. Glasslights

Simone Muench http://www.simonemuench.com

Susan Slaviero's full-length collection of poetry, CYBORGIA, is available from Mayapple Press. Recent chapbooks include A Wicked Apple (Hyacinth Girl Press), Selections from The Murder Book (Winner of Ghost Ocean Magazine's 2011 Chapbook Contest), and Apocrypha (Dancing Girl Press). Her work has appeared in journals Fourteen Hills, Rhino, Oyez Review, Artifice Magazine, PANK and elsewhere. Susan has a BA in English/Professional & Creative Writing from Lewis University. She moonlights as a literary editor for blossombones and as a performer with the Chicago Poetry Bordello.

THE NOIR WIFE

She's smackleg, gunbody brilliant.
She knows how to pin a man with her
tailbone, pen him nitrogen-blind
like a block of dry ice. She's
Lauren Bacall with a cigarette
stuck to her gums, lipstick
smeared on her pretty
cupid's bow. Glasslights
]]> static. Even her eyes are shades
of snowflake obsidian.
This woman is all short
skirt and thigh. Hank of hair.
He called her dragonliver. Meercat.
The next thing he knew, okra
was slipping off his fork,
greening the Yellow Pages.
She brained this guy in his own kitchen.
Iced him in his fedora and bedroom
slippers, left him lying
coiled and ribboned,
a slice of film.

HIVES

1. n. structures (natural or manmade) that house colonies of bees.

In entomologic terms, the girl lacks the necessary
exoskeleton. She soaks in a pool of honey,
but the balm slips away, like flesh from boiled bones.
She surrounds herself with busy patterns—
plaids & paisleys, cabbage roses—
to camouflage the blemishes in the drywall.
She eats her morning toast with royal jelly,
isolates herself in wax rooms, humming
as she peels oranges with her beestung mouth.

2. n. allergic skin condition characterized by hot, reddish welts.

A man is waiting. He offers the girl a piece
of sweet halvah. Blisters form
on her tongue. He wears a mesh suit
when he handles her. The vast
dimensions of his hands, the way they
smell of leather and freshly husked corn.
There is a scar near the arch
of his eyebrow, still sutured
with rough black thread.

She is more than warm.
She is parasitic.

ROSE RED, ON SIBLING RIVALRY

I.
Don't look at her;
I'm the wilder sister.
I pass time with stags
& falcons, keep midnights
in the deepest patch of forest.
I sleep in mossy beds
while she spins
& weaves beside the hearth.
Changelings prick my feet
with thistles to wake me.
They suspect I am kindred—
fey-hearted & ephemeral
as the waning moon.

II.
At home, it's always
"bolt the door & boil the kettle."
Here, there are untamed berries
for breakfast, bright as carnelians
among my white, white teeth.
Tea, brewed on smoldering branches
that tastes of wild ginger
& pennyroyal.

III.
Why does the black bear favor her?
She's all milk & apron-starch.
I'll eat a fish alive,
still squirming
on the bloody hook.

IV.
I brew a witch's tonic
to mute her indigo eyes:
the heart of a doe, the beard
of an imp. A pinch of salt.
Go to sleep, pale sister.
I'm red
as a wicked apple,
as a whore's shoe.

]]> Make it --- tag:www.sharkforum.org,2012://1.2687 2012-09-10T17:21:28Z 2012-09-10T17:22:34Z

The slogan of Modernism was Ezra Pound's "Make it new." The unspoken slogan of Postmodernism is "Make it clever." I suggest a new slogan for reaching beyond Postmodernism: "Make it yours, make it matter." --- Mark Staff Brandl.

Mark Staff Brandl http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/ The slogan of Modernism was Ezra Pound's "Make it new." The unspoken slogan of Postmodernism is "Make it clever." I suggest a new slogan for reaching beyond Postmodernism: "Make it yours, make it matter." --- Mark Staff Brandl. Relational Social Work - not phony art world posing. tag:www.sharkforum.org,2012://1.2686 2012-09-03T22:22:55Z 2012-11-18T19:21:08Z

The Shark http://www.wesleykimlerstudio.com ]]> 'Meanwhile,' Installation by Mark Staff Brandl tag:www.sharkforum.org,2012://1.2685 2012-09-03T19:20:21Z 2012-09-03T19:24:54Z

A 28 minute documentary video of the painting installation created in 2011 at the Peoria Contemporary Art Center by Mark Staff Brandl, Gary Scoles and Th. Emil Homerin.

Mark Staff Brandl http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/

A 28 minute documentary video of the painting installation created in 2011 at the Peoria Contemporary Art Center by Mark Staff Brandl, Gary Scoles and Th. Emil Homerin.]]> The World is Full --- tag:www.sharkforum.org,2012://1.2682 2012-09-02T10:03:41Z 2012-09-02T10:05:48Z

"The world is full of spectacles, often allegedly shocking and avant-garde, mostly elitist, dreary and kitschy; I do not wish to add any more." --- Mark Staff Brandl. An update to and critique of Douglas Huebler's statement. Please quote me.

Mark Staff Brandl http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/ "The world is full of spectacles, often allegedly shocking and avant-garde, mostly elitist, dreary and kitschy; I do not wish to add any more." --- Mark Staff Brandl. An update to and critique of Douglas Huebler's statement. Please quote me. Poetry of the Week: "Fear of the Bit, "Before We Are Full of Rue," and "She, Named P_______ At Birth, Speaks to Me, Says" by Lynne Thompson tag:www.sharkforum.org,2012://1.2681 2012-08-20T19:09:15Z 2012-08-20T19:33:33Z

Simone Muench http://www.simonemuench.com

Lynne Thompson's Beg No Pardon won the Perugia Press First Book Award and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Thompson was recently commissioned to write a poem to celebrate the installation of Alison Saar's statue of Harriet Tubman at her alma mater, Scripps College, and she has received residences from the SLS Summer Literary Seminars and the Vermont Studio Center. Recent work has appeared in Sou'Wester, Solo Novo, Ploughshares and the 2010 anthology New Poets of the American West. The December 2012 issue of the journal Spillway will be her first as Review & Essay Editor of that publication.

FEAR OF THE BIT

First came a thought of pronouns, under-
pants, tin. Next, she noticed her parents
feared evolution and abstract paintings.
They taught her to fear one-liners, drywall,
and the entire state of Georgia. She taught
herself to fear receptacles, sportscasters,
corkscrews, and the number nine. While
others admit to a fear of interbreeding
and nomads, a clan of wild gypsies fears
Big Ben. Some Christians own up to a fear
]]> horses have an understandable fear
of the bit. Her firstborn—a sweet, smart
thing—says he's learned to fear statuary
but his sister declares she fears fear.

BEFORE WE ARE FULL OF RUE

come to me in the swagger of night.
Whether you are struggling vampire
or foe or star-breath, come—oh yes—
when I am in the land of malfunction
and curious syntax, of Strayhorn played

on Saturn's rims, come, when late-light
is least opaque. When owls start their
hooting, come. Whether or not I agree,
come like you've come on no Saturday
night before and alone, or, if you must,

come with your hands full of thyme.
Stay until the metronome stops then start
that tango all over again. If you come
to me, I'll give you lusty pandemonium
because, after heat-hard hours, I become

most true. Before it is too late—(and
isn't it always must too late?)—come.
And when we are completely filled with
the rue of our felonies, of our fallibilities,
tide and turn, then come once more.

SHE, NAMED P______ AT BIRTH, SPEAKS TO ME, SAYS

"You think you know who you are:
you do not. You think everything's great
in your gravy train life, your feet up
on the taboret, sipping fingers of Pernod
and blowing smoky O's of Gauloise
like you were born to it. You were not.

You were born at County Gen., the random
upshot of a collision between an urgent
virgin, a married man, and the backseat of
a Studebaker though everyone knows
there was no joy the night you got made.
You came into this world on cotton rough

from 10,000 washings. The doc showed up
late; then spilled a little Maxwell House
on the sheets; the nurses yawned. Mama cried
for you for sixteen hours before her water broke
and she's been in labor for you all her life. But
no one came; no one came to see. So in time,

mama just gave you away. Of course,
you don't remember that just like you don't
remember me. Me, who never got the pretty
dresses. Never got the vacations at the beach.
Never sat down with the family to eat lamb
and mint jelly on a sunny Easter day. No,

you don't remember me. It's as though you
were born to the manor, born to speak lousy
French and read Edwardian novels in a hot-
house; to gad about at high-tone schools,
to raise your finger just so, so the ruby shines.
But you don't know who you really are, Miss

Don't-Remind-Me; Miss Given-Away-Four-
Times-Until-You-Were-Taken-For-Good. Well,
you got my blood in your veins and you ain't
no fancy dancer, you ain't no pearls and piety,
you ain't no seashell by the seashore, and you
sure ain't no evening out at Lincoln Center.

You got me in your veins, got my chipped white
fence, my regular job, my 39-dollar-a-night
room in Vegas, and this name that ain't gonna be
at the end of any poem. But don't worry, my sister,
my slip of a pen, I'll never let you forget the night
you were born, my name was all you had."

]]> "The Middle Against Both Ends" tag:www.sharkforum.org,2012://1.2680 2012-08-19T13:44:18Z 2012-08-19T13:52:42Z

A MUST READ for all artists, art worldians, literary folks and comic fans, now online: One of the greatest essays of all time on comics, fine art, classism, and elitism by the super litereray critic and theorist, the late Leslie Fiedle. His "The Middle Against Both Ends" : >http://www.unz.org/Pub/Encounter-1955aug-00016?View=PDF I had the great joy of corresponding with Fiedler close to the end of his life via email --- he himself said he was on his "probable deathbed" in the hospital. He wrote up till the end. a giant of a thinker, reader, theorist and man.

Mark Staff Brandl http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/

A MUST READ for all artists, art worldians, literary folks and comic fans, now online: One of the greatest essays of all time on comics, fine art, classism, and elitism by the super litereray critic and theorist, the late Leslie Fiedle. His "The Middle Against Both Ends" : >http://www.unz.org/Pub/Encounter-1955aug-00016?View=PDF

I had the great joy of corresponding with Fiedler close to the end of his life via email --- he himself said he was on his "probable deathbed" in the hospital. He wrote up till the end. a giant of a thinker, reader, theorist and man.]]> Poetry of the Week: "Sam's Gap, TN/NC," "The Lee Shore," "The Field," and "Cheat River" by Ryan Walsh tag:www.sharkforum.org,2012://1.2679 2012-08-13T20:03:48Z 2012-08-14T03:17:11Z

Simone Muench http://www.simonemuench.com

Ryan Walsh grew up in West Virginia and is author of The Sinks (winner of the 2010 Mississippi Valley Poetry Chapbook Contest). His poems have appeared in Ecotone, FIELD, Green Mountains Review, Narrative, among others, and he serves on the editorial board of Q Ave Press, makers of handmade poetry chapbooks. He has degrees from Warren Wilson College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and taught for several years at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. A scholarship recipient from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and finalist for a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship in 2011, he currently works at the Vermont Studio Center and lives in Johnson, VT.

SAM'S GAP, TN/NC

You must be born again.
First clouds, then rain,
then evaporation's cool hand
lifting. The horizon we see
is the horizon. Tracings
of hawk. Eyeful
of mountain like
the body of the beloved
in repose. You cannot
go home again.

]]> THE LEE SHORE

I want a darkness I can remember

Here
Even this

lip of the continent
this garden of whales
this nightwater

arrives mottled like the hides of harbor seals
like the moon clouded over

It doesn't matter what I want

::

I watched the oats in the pot
breathing

like a man's chest
rising and falling as he sleeps

like the heaves of hill upon hill
making shadows in the yard

How does it feel
that last breath that turns you
into night
into ocean salt
into coral

::

Or did the twin sparrows on your chest
bear you the miles home
to the foothills

where your brothers found
black veins in the earth

new light

::

At the bottom of the sea there is no
lamp to read by

Just the memory of white lilies arranged in a milk bottle
by an open window in July

THE FIELD

We're down 5-2 and I've been watching fog
creep into the outfield from behind me,
thinking about the way summer
has already made a ghost of itself.
And when the big guy with the neck tattoo,
who's already scorched a double down the third-base line,
nails another one toward me, I'm not ready.
There's no fence to keep the ball
from rolling into the deep and unmowed
corners of the park. So I follow it there

looking for the grass-stained Spalding my dad and I
threw back and forth and back until dusk,
so as to keep out of Papaw Carter's house
that smelled of death, which is to say it smelled
of urine and of raw chicken thawing on the kitchen
counter and the years of mineral oil worked into the dark
wood furniture of the living room.
One of Papaw's farm cats slinks by. Splash of blood
on its white face. And I am looking for the ball,
keeping my eyes away from the house and the man
in the house who shares my blood. Whose purpled toes
had to be cut off to save the left foot. Whose purblind
pony paced a circle in the bare grass. Whose papery
voice was kept thin under blankets in August.

When he dies, Mom says his heart will fly
home to Jesus. And I picture the bloody form
like the red bird the cat dragged into the dooryard
rising over the farm, over
the low grey skies of Pruntytown,
vanishing beyond the mountains.
Papaw died in a room with the TV on
mute. I can't recall what happened
to that swayback pony nor the ball,
nor even where to find the plot of earth
where he's buried.

Someone is crying Home as the big guy rounds
third. Home! I leg it out to the taller grasses
now damp with end-of-summer evening.
And there in the grass is the ball.
Home. It seems impossibly far.

CHEAT RIVER

Tonight
on the bridge where I miss you most
I cast a line

to the river

The moon shimmers
like a fish scale

or a ten-penny nail
a hand holding a hand

::

It's true

With a line and enough patience
you can feed
your friends

::

Once we lay in the grass
shined up and watching
something
called Summer

Moon in the sky
Moon on the river

For a second it looked
blood-dusk-amber
like the ventral fins of perch

like our eyes
closed facing up

It was only
the bottle light

::

The big ones feed
down where the bank deeps off
in the darkness
where the little ones are scared to go

::

I love to look
at hearts
said the boy

I slit our trout
tail to jaw
on some newsprint

I laid its parts
on the newspaper
to show him

]]> Poetry of the Week: "Prologue," "National Flag Week," and "Escape Artist" by Matthew Guenette tag:www.sharkforum.org,2012://1.2678 2012-08-04T19:16:38Z 2012-08-04T19:51:53Z

Simone Muench http://www.simonemuench.com

Matthew Guenette is the author of two books. His most recent poetry collection is American Busboy (University of Akron Press, 2011), a book inspired by his years busing tables at a vast warehouse of a seafood restaurant where the food was mostly fried and always served on disposable dinnerware. His first book, Sudden Anthem (Dream Horse Press, 2008), won the 2007 American Poetry Journal Book Prize. He has been awarded residencies for the Hessen-Wisconsin Literary Fellowship and the Vermont Studio Center. His poems appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Barn Owl Review, DIAGRAM, Indiana Review, and numerous others. He lives and works Madison, Wisconsin.

—PROLOGUE—
for Josh Bell

When we failed to steal lobsters
from a rival's tank
they made us eat
fistfuls of tartar sauce.

Busing tables
is a form of worship—
The managers would be screaming—
BUSING TABLES

IS A FORM OF WORSHIP!
until we became abstract compositions,
shocked into prepping
the Golden-Brown Traps

]]> Golden-Brown Traps prepared.
On Labor Day
they pierced our nipples

for The Monster Triple Shifts,
made us understand
our loved ones
would never understand

but the training held
certain rewards—
for instance, the prospect of raining
on rude tourists

a weather of coleslaw & fried shrimp.
That our cod-
pieces grew more explosive
each day helped us believe

in the mission.
Our sweat-soaked shirts raised,
the waist bands
of our polyester pants pulled down,

we searched for busboy
birthmarks born
of fierce chafing.
With their Teflon

hands the managers might suddenly
slap us—
Those moments where death
felt moments away—

Checking to see
if we'd stick to the training,
not call out the names
of the ones we loved

(our loved ones
who would never understand)
testing to see
if we'd keep busing

like each tables was a voice
buried alive. Many questions were served
in the busboy training.
Like: Could these new faces

be removed? Could they ever be
cleaned & serviced?
& when it finally seemed
nothing could touch us—

We were wrong,
everything could touch us.
The managers
let us go.

—NATIONAL FLAG WEEK—

When the hostess comes
out to apologize
for the over-fried clams

she's doing her job—
Apologizing for disappointing fried clams.
Apologizing for fried clams that have underachieved.

Apologizing for fried clams
that have lost their sense of purpose.
It was determined

the cheese slices stuck to the ceiling
must have had their reasons.
Generally

as they prepped your food
the cooks would listen unironically
to 80s speed metal.

The locker room
where socks
had gone to die.

The lobster tank where now & then
a lobster tried to escape,
but the others

would drag him back—
This isn't about the flawed
democracy of lobster tanks,

the sweaty dictatorship
of managers
at the bar with toothpicks

in their mouths
saying things like You missed a spot.
Or the unacceptable conditions

the green dumpsters worked under
wheezing blue fluid
to the bay

where the tourist attraction
were tourists
who were attractions

thanks to their shitty parallel
parking skills.
The new rich estates

along the shore
looked like cheap estates
trying to look

like old rich estates.
On the bulletin board
in English & Spanish were directions

for what to do
if someone was choking.
If you were choking in another

language too bad for you.
Still—
There were times busing tables

when I felt strangely free.
Yet no one asks
how I came to be a busboy.

It was the same way
anyone becomes a busboy.
Someone on the inside

vouched for my character.

—ESCAPE ARTIST—

Harry Houdini could escape any
thing. He escaped
the 17th ward. He escaped his name.
Nobody wanted to see
an Erik Weisz
escape from a pair of black & white
checkered polyester pants so he slipped
into Houdini after bootlegging his way
from Hungary, which he called
Appleton, Wisconsin.
That's how good he was—
He was Hungarian named Erik Weisz
who tricked everyone into thinking he
was a Houdini from Appleton, Wisconsin.
His father was a chowder cook. His mother a colossal
a deep sigh of a wave. Hello?
In school he could make gym disappear.
He was voted Most Likely
To Be First in the Line. Then he was voted Most Likely
To Die. At airports he escaped being stripped-searched
with swagger. In Russia he escaped from Siberia.
In Escape from New York he escaped
from New York with a case
of hundred dollar bills. He could escape
all kinds of shit just by holding his breathe. He could even
escape his image in a mirror—as good
as escaping time. Compared to that, being
suspended upside-down in a tank filled
with managers & electric eels
was nothing. He was like
a curtain. He was like a pair of dark shades.
A mouth of gold teeth.
He would regurgitate small keys at parties
to impress chicks. When he had to work in a restaurant
he bused tables with his thoughts. When he kissed
the waitresses he never moved his lips.

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