At 3 on a drizzled Tuesday
emptiness, echoes and shrieks
arc the walls of long tunnels
from where dinosaurs are kept.
Exhibit C: to the right, a small room
on the main floor of the gallery hall,
a low marble bench against the wall;
stained-glass, on loan from the Morgan Bldg.,
with its splash spectra among soft fall patches,
the filtered sun familiar to most museum goers --
delightful poultices against a cold, recessed vacuum
of masterpieces from an age when darkness was rave
fashion and severe, its art cutting the heart out of space.
Station 2
Her thin verticality
on the bench
in the room
beyond
hugely dreary
Flemish
masters
that seem
to press her
like waxed flowers
into the fiber
of the wall panel
turned edge on
to picture things
Precariously
balanced
like fronds of
plain, brown
cotton tumbled
down from her lap
&onto the floor.
Or, perhaps as propped umbrella
with streamers noted for retrieval
by 'lost&found'
on his way back
from station 8.
Station 3>
The armory is space carved by form protected from space.
The great empty ceremonial suits are useless for battle;
inert forms of mythic stature that once warned of invincibility
while its hapless resident stood the watch of a pickled worm
in a mezcal bottle. She half-reclines on the wicker chaise,
and curls her nylon feet around its ornamental detailing,
eyeing the useless madness of yet another flag-sucking gesture.
The great helmets would be insufferably hot. Thank god
they took pity and let us in early. Back there, she could
only stand at the vertex, blot out the crowd and feel the
great wings with their 57,939 voiceless names closing
around her like the pages of a dark pornography, crushing
her to jelly inside their vacant promises, passing her from
name to name until the whole U.S. Army had used her up,
smeared her jellied remains the entire length of 140
black granite panels.
This morning her fingers brushed the slick trail of snail track
that coiled over his name. She left a replica of her touch
on the sea of 58,209 vacant desires that refused to die
and took the first door that offered relief from fresh flowers.
Her eye traced over the seams of his metal boot, sizing up
the empty shell that towered above her. She could see
dents on the shins and rust on the segmented knee plate.
She slipped her palm through the vents in the crotch
and felt around in the empty cavity. She ran her lips
over the blood-soaked interior. Rivets tore the skin
from her back, the breastplate was insufferably hot,
the helmet blinding, the confinement excruciating.
A closing bell rang through the empty rooms. She rose,
adjusted her skirt and left without looking back. A day-glo
sign flickered behind her, promising more dead things.
Station 4
wiblldiyup
wibbldiyup, wibbldiyup…
gggggggggggaauauauauauAuAuAuAUAUAUAUGGGGgggggggggggggg
wibbldiyup, wibbldiyup…
grbla, grbla
grbla, brbla
grbla, brbla
chka.chka.chka.chka.chka.chka. CHKA.CHKA…chka.chkachkachkachkachka
gckgckgggggg…GGGGGGGGG…ggggg
wibbldiyup,
| Sl i de &fit with tab 'n slottle skin- ny little things nobs &throttle dang ling smooth shim- mering light ly, slight ly eel- ong- )-gated shapes slip(ery sur- face (e)s2 sentially play full parts with soul- full reach may chatter clatter on de- part ure. |
 |
Station 5
The glass doors to the Shakespeare garden are closed & locked.
A statue is somewhere out there, subdued by the overgrowth
in a setting of bramble, nettle and fig and has given up crying
for recovery. Benign neglect born in times of tight money .
Even the old beer cans and gum wrappers have been swallowed
in the tangles of Elizabethan habit . A shopping cart is parked
by some back steps, its wheels resist gravity's desire
to feed it to the hungry Shakespearean flora.
They remain closed: EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY
and to one side, the long hall to The Dinosaur Exhibit
is underscored by a big day-glo arrow
===>DINOSAURS THIS WAY.
He thinks he'd like to put an arrow down the other end,
<=== BIOMORPHS THIS WAY.
The time isn't quite right,
but he thinks about it.
We presume a moment's break
when the clouds part,
of sunlight appearing to flicker
in the cart by the back door,
warming her milk.
Station 6
Her nails chewed and ragged,
stained fingers scarred with cruel marks,
seasons of unrelenting usage;
HANDS DISCOVERED
HOLDING THE WORLD TOGETHER
but it does not slow them down
attaching light patches to remnants
with needles as fleet as quicksilver --
curved like the meniscus of the moon
in an overflowing cup - bands
of colored cloth snaking from a paper sack,
as she hems them with hues of stained glass.
The biomorphs cannot be seen from his direction.
The woman cocks her head to one side/the other
in rapid succession. From here, she is vertical line
suspended between two versions of the same Picasso,
eye-s and everything else in profile.
She throws bread-crumbs in the direction
where the Biomorphs generally congregate.
He cannot see this gesture, he is hurrying to the next station.
Station 7
The last clock punched, he races by the columns
in the grand foyer, slides the final twenty feet through
the room of dark masters and into exhibit 'C'
as the final swatch of daylight scratches the beak
of the tallest biomorph and heads home.
The Biomorph recovers from an involuntary gesture
that widens a thin line into essential complex shape,
but the bench is empty and the race continues.
Last Exit
Echos of doors clicking shut urge him down the hall
and skid before the EMERGENCY EXIT
The cement steps into the garden are pied
with large drops of rain.
A remnant of paper bag dissolves
in the 'hand' of something longish
and Mondrian, folding down the steps
out across the forest green of unkempt lawn.
A thin vertical line merges into a thicket
of wholly purpled leaf, awash and gone!
Station 8
Note to the night custodian:
1) There is some birdseed and bread
crust, in 'C' again. Not much. It can wait till morning.
2) Do me a favor? See if you can find a piece of plastic
to put over the shopping cart by the east-exit stairs?
3) The exhibit will be moving on soon. I expect the birdseed
will no longer be a problem. Can you get me a jar of dayglo paint
from the supply cabinet?
Clocking Out
He imagines them on exhibit.
Each one the penultimate statement
by artists who carve space into life-
forming perfect relations with Emergency Exits.
" Rollin' Life, with Brown Dog"
Museum acquisition, 1999; gift of Eddie 'C' Street.
" Removed by Order of City Council";
From the collection of Loaves and Fishes, Sacramento, 1998
"SuperX"
Annie Warfrat;circa 1950. Permanent collection.
" This Cart's for You"
found at abandoned river camp; anonymous; c. 2000
They'd parallel park on the sides of the esplanade;
or diagonal down the tunnel to the Dinosaurs,
under a multi-colored fantasia of circus lighting.
They'd strut with re-enforced cowcatchers,
night-vision reflectors, plastic grocery saddlebags.
They hold one of a kind treasures, cotton bouquets,
aluminum pop tabs, rubber bicycle grips.
They are infinitely grander than the wealthiest homes of their neighbors;
They are brigantine, caravan, windjammer, Chinese junk and surfboard.
They insist on equal access, they vote, they can cure, they are Art.
In the 'C' room they would circle like wagons;
birds would nest in their branches, patches of sunlight
play in their compartments and they'd sport the very best
in stained-glass grillwork from the studios of Frank Lloyd-Wright.
