s w i f t s  &  s l o w s: a quarterly of crisscrossings

Legends of Gang Bars
Kofi Fosu Forson & Noah Becker

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Still Life

White sky, blue clouds form features of man and woman
Canvas for the eyes, battles which determine governments
Rule by breast alone, female equation requires nurturing
Kingdoms once imperial, undermined as colors blue and red
Division, art as vice: how to sculpt a bust, represent a queen
Ugly/beauty, violence; “the body”; legislative and judicial

World above us; life wet with moisture, signifying rainfall
Empires that have come and gone, washed away like water
Rebuild order, pillars, mountains as metaphor, positioning
This too we find structure, construct, masculine or feminine
Balance between: scars on a neck interpreted as necklace
Territorial: symbolism and stereotype become threatening

Evening at the Park

Art lofts where we sat to rock and roll cliches;
I remember them well. How I held a cigarette
Pink martini in the other. Sip after sip, I talked
about resuscitating Carla, night we lost our minds.
At the bars drunk, we were parts frozen and straight
Out of the bottle or by blender, we tasted like medicine.
Some people you don’t sleep with. Lemme tell you psycho
stories. I collect them at every last call. Washed up, let out.
Parks where the hoods walked on, I come here for the stars.
There’s no sorority, groupies, press people, ad men, paparazzi.
New York, California, real estate prices, sushi, magazine covers.
Pop stardom at a tender age, you keep comp tickets in your pocket
I held them dangerously close; those who showed me the door
Leaving a trail behind, “the kissable”, Veuve Clicquot bottles
At the ranch, middle-age men disguised themselves as pets
Pretended to be Yorkshire Terriers, poodles, chihuahuas
On their laps I looked into a room of faces, frightened
Traumatized by daddy’s feather eye mask, Cuban cigar
Mother, backseat Testarossa, car crash after car crash
Forgotten, her dreams were more B-movie dreams
She never got a chance at the front row-sold outs
While the sunbathers make their way into cars
I wait on hoodlums, hide behind my Ray-bans

Midnight at the Mini Golf

I play it as it lays; this flat land, run over by golf carts, gentlemen.
We are not men; we are physical specimens. Our corporate clientele
wait on us. Who are we, but American. What are we? Run of the mill
We once lived for the space age; generations come before, now gone
Fathers and grand-daddy’s, served their time at war, fought Russians.
We drink White Russian with Russian Sugar Daddy’s, pee champagne.
After-hours, we live the game through our heated minds. Who laid up!
Reminisce about Augusta, gossip heard within the gallery. Who is hot!
They bring ’em in one by one. Czech girls. They perform happy dances.
Outside, the sky is Brazil at night. When those voodoo spirits possess
There’s magic in our fingers. Signing checks, our names on bare breasts
These green jackets are not one-size-fits-all. Well-dressed. Tailor-made.
Business is sport; like politics of women, politics of drinking, dancing
Who follows a girl into a bar, does he buy her a drink, offer her a job?
We hand out business cards, make small talk. NYC attorneys at large
By their handicap, we know which sure-shots to bring over for a round
They drive up in Bentleys, wear their egos around the waist, six-abed
The art walls are luxury-made. Paintings that cough up six figure prices
When we feel fattened by our escapades, we reach for expensive cigars
Thinking thoughts of our favorite collegiate pastime, poker, bare-chested

Night Ritual

Tear myself to pieces    night watchman    at the gate

Barbed wire    lock down     sleeping with my eyes open

Dreams of the electric chair   tattooed faces    gang bars

Dancing on rooftop    night sky    channeling Russian doll

Legend at happy hour   gentlemen in waiting    white kiss

My body as a map    colonized from arms to legs    breasts

These dances    midnight riot    nightmare    wake the dead

Music in the air    concerto for endgames    murder ballads

Do I suffocate    die at the hands of a lover    fake an orgasm

Eros    romantic battles    love warriors    war with ourselves

Dark hours    electric light    acrobatic    bizarre night ritual

Voyeur    paint me with your eyes    warm breath on skin

Positioned    I begin a tarantella    no partner    no rhythm

Become marionette    black widow spider    possessing me

Weightless    inflatable love doll    ascend    levitate    float

Nothingness   thoughts in back of mind    life after death

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Paintings: Noah Becker. Poetry: Kofi Fosu Forson.

Kofi Fosu Forson is a writer, poet and playwright. He explores subjects of post-transformative conscience(s), transcendence in art, gender and ethnic politics. His current poetry manuscript, Ghost of Brother Blackburn and Other Poems, was shortlisted by Broken Sleep Press.

Noah Becker is an American and Canadian artist, writer, art publisher and jazz saxophonist who lives and works in New York City and Vancouver Island in British Columbia. A prodigy in painting and drawing, Becker was born in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up on a 40-acre farm on Thetis Island, off the coast of British Columbia. He moved with his family to Victoria, British Columbia, at age 15, after their house burned down. He had little early formal education and did not attend high school but excelled at writing. He was a painting student at Victoria College of Art, and studied saxophone in Toronto before moving to New York in 2010.