--- B O B   P E R E L M A N

I read it in a book, a big one 
about an interesting person, very-
but I am not those decades 

how Andy Warhol presented Frank O'Hara
with a drawing of his penis at a party 
Frank O'Hara's penis, but not at Frank O'Hara's party 
it was a party where uptown curator Frank O'Hara did not smile upon his 
represented penis 
commandeered-in a virtual sense-by downtown upstart Andy Warhol 

never smiled until Pittsburgh Andy began making it everywhere, which is 
where 
here wants to be too 

Where is that drawing now, the venal sun wonders 
and where is that smile 
and the wagging tails of yesteryear?

All I'm saying is remember I exist 
That's all each tail wants 

It's not that I don't like the decor particular to my contemporary 
situation
or at least recognize it
or sit in its midst at any rate 

it is that any decor problematizes 
the system of rewards 
administered by oneself
-but no one seems to know precisely how this is done- 
in one's momentary upskirt monastery droning continuity
we like to call our time 
love to 
engaged in one's objective and one's subjective stirrup 
during one's there-I-could-never-be-a-person displays of horsemanship 
streaking into the earnestly timed close of the latest day
with its streetlight-softening moonrise 
bricking and unbricking the living arrangement 
doled out dolled up in words my dear, words, phrases, they make you look 
so great 
Hold it, just like that 

We are a long way 
from Frank O'Hara's penis 
 
but not from the question of success in the art world
advanced just beyond market regulation, conducive to no single civic 
happiness 
just over the edge of closely desired public statement and its narcoleptic 
negotiations
but there are so many timeshares 
and barely systematic dreads 
scenic overflows of utter legibility 
that at some point just about everyone's lips are paralyzed with grief 
over the despicable pictures 
hardly to be assuaged by the so-called writing H. D. saw on the wall I 
read of in a book 
another big book 
about another interesting person, very- 
and this time the book was interesting too-

But the wall, well, the wall is still the wall