From Basil King’s 77 Beasts

June 2015

 ALICE NEEL

Self Portrait, 1980

My name is Alice Neel

Had I known him
I would have taken
Vincent van Gogh
to bed and told him
one of my ancestors
signed the Declaration
of Independence.
One of my ancestors wants
to look inside my pocketbook
and find my parents’ address.

I too had childhood tantrums
thinking about
how it would be
if the family
were reinstated
to a position
they had once held.

When I was a girl I claimed
Joan of Arc for a friend
telling everyone that she’d told me
that if I did what she said
I would come to understand
the personal pronoun.
Joan was a hard woman.
She had no use for bone china
cups and saucers or for women
eating biscuits as they crossed
their legs.

CY TWOMBLY

Every day Billy scratched
on the walls of the house
where he lived and when
all the walls and floors
and ceilings had been covered
he bought paper and crayons
and paint and when the house
in which he lived was full of
paper he moved and started
all over again and when his
neighbors realized that Billy
Boy was going to come into
their houses and cover their
walls they called the patron
saint of painters St. Luke and
he came and put his hand on
Billy’s shoulder and told him
about vernacular and how what
once was thrown away was now
valued and how he, Billy, could
demonstrate that trivia can
make a perfect picture and
that he, Billy, could become
his own object and live in
the world as a beautiful song

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

Miles Davis
feeds
the high
that C’s
me through
the Delta.

Charlie Parker
can’t cross
the street
when the
light is
green.

Step and
Fetch It
ate
Eggs.

The Black
policeman
never shoots
till he
sees the
whites
of their
eyes.

ESTEBAN VINCENTE
Interiors, 1987

Like the armor of a clock
I have found my limits
are emotional  As I
describe the language
my lattice my lace
circumscribe an order
of being I am not

We paint from memory
those things that are nearby
Even though
the realism
of your portrait
dissolves

I squeeze your heart
and feel jealousy

Like the armor of a clock
I have found my limits
are emotional  As I
describe the language
my lattice my lace
circumscribe an order
of being I am not

BRADLEY WALKER TOMLIN
No. 20, 1949

Bob’s getting his haircut
by Fred, who wants Emma
to meet him, on the corner of
Vine and Main, money is exchanged

The Bordens lost their daughter
to a family who have been printing
newspapers since Abraham Lincoln
and Mary Todd moved to the White House

During the Civil War
both sides served American food
and gassed up at the intersection

Vern the service station attendant
married Martha and their two boys
got educated and moved away

the creature keeps changing
I’m not complaining, but,
it’s hard to tell the newcomers
there’s more to art

ARSHILE GORKY
Diary of a Seducer, 1945

On Wednesday I walked into the bedroom
and was persuaded to rethink my dreams,
or was that on Monday?  Tuesday I thought
about my liver, about change, about desire,
about wanting more than befits wanting
a stranger.  Thursday was not|
unlike Friday.  I painted all day on the condition that Saturday
receive a standing ovation.
I promise that on Sunday
I will love you.

MARSDEN HARTLEY
Painting No. 48, 1913

Rose Hips
look upon me
as a brother

I really love to paint

MARK ROTHKO
Red, Brown, & Black, 1958

I know a man
who says

“I will go to hell
to hear sweet laughter.”

I know a man
who likes his lips
every time he smiles.

I know a man
who eats chicken
with his fingers.

I know a man
who says

“If you are
an out-sider
you must study
hard and
learn to do it.”

BARNETT NEWMAN

Only Analee understands what separates the two of us as we sleep together.  She has her side of the bed, as I have mine.  I have my pillow, and she has hers.  We respect each other.  The size of our bed never changes.  But my paintings vary.  Some are 7’ x 18’ and some have been wrought out of emotions that are a few inches wide.

Analee isn’t home.  Newman turns on the radio. Someone is singing “Pennies From Heaven.”  Someone is collecting all the pennies and putting them in a large glass vase.  Because there are so many the vase overflows and the pennies spread onto the table.  Pennies begin to fall onto the floor.  The floor becomes covered with pennies.  They cover the walls and all the windows.  They chase the occupant of the apartment into the hallway.  Newman turns off the radio.

Newman goes to the race track.  He wonders how he is going to pay the rent.  He loses the daily double.  Has a cup of coffee and bets on a long shot.  It pays 70 to 1.  He loses, and takes the subway home.  On the subway he runs into Larry Rivers.  Rivers seats Newman in front of a Newman drawing.  The finished drawing is large and has two signatures, one above the other.  Homage.  The top signature reads Barney Newman.  The other, directly below, reads Larry Rivers.  Did Newman sign his own name? Or did Rivers sign for both of them? The drawing can be seen in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

John Chamberlain may have derived his shapes from abstract paintings.  But it’s Chamberlain’s imagination that transforms colored scraps of old car parts into sculptured miniatures of the 1960s.  Random parts, scraps, metal leftovers, excesses of the car-buying public are made into artificial flowers that have no need of vases, crystals, or chandeliers to promote their elegance.  Sometimes there small pieces become last night’s stews.  Chamberlain doesn’t hesitate.  Strike, sweet stew.  Action is the aesthete’s first weapon.  Miniatures don’t always sit still.  They get hungry.  They thirst for structure, for materials that will excavate the core.  Apples and lumber and strands that twist the heart claim the workers lining the avenues praying for a new car.  Popular icons blink and shudder.  No one is reproached for not working.  Not even the bountiful Chamberlain knows how long this will last.

Chamberlain moves his arms and we learn that he can smile.  His totems entitle families to migrate to places that they would never have dreamt of.  His grandfather was a bird and his bride was snake.  When they mated, they had his father.  His father said he didn’t want to fly and he didn’t want to be on the ground.  Their children are the ones of whom I speak.  I’ve heard them talk about their parents.  What they have to say is, you can get lost.  You can walk into a wall.  The night is not the only darkness. Remember your Totem.  Remember there are no windows or doors in Chamberlain’s miniatures.  Where does the light come from?  Remember your Totem.  Click…turn on the lights and go outside.

THEO/VINCENT

Theo sits next to his brother Vincent.  They are on a park bench.  Behind them there is a path that follows a line of trees.  Vincent is taller than his brother.  Theo is better dressed. They are talking about their parents.  Theo wants Vincent to visit them.  Vincent is giving too many reasons why he shouldn’t.  Someone took a photo of this encounter.  The photo in now lost.  But before that someone drew the two brothers.  Then there was an accident.  The man who drew the brothers had a child.  No one knows how the child got hold of the drawing.  The child drew over it with colored pencils.  Because there was so much admiration for the Van Gogh brothers the drawing was framed.  It now hangs on a sitting room wall somewhere in Holland.

 All work & drawings from 77 Beasts, Basil King’s Beastiary, Marsh Hawk Press, New York, 2007