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