Waterbug

Something exciting

The exciting story is what we do, of course, with art. Going out to paint yesterday with Jack, I learn that for him it's not just the act of painting, but being in the car, headed to "the beauty spot" with a fresh canvas, that's exciting.

And for me, what's exciting is the mad application of paint to a canvas, trying to capture some part of what I see — on this mild Christmas eve day —  into something coherent, a composition, that will communicate some part of what I see/feel, minus the mud and the exhaustion.

Tell me a story, Self

If life is story each of us
is continually telling him or herself,
why don't we tell ourselves
something exciting?

Dean

Persona Non Au Gratin

My Dear Wife,

obviously you mistake for me
the speaker (or "persona") of my poem
about some pitiful husband (a husband
referred to as "I" and "me
purely for purposes of dramatic
immediacy) who dwells on his
grotesque memories of acne'd and hackneyed
and desperately horny adolescence.

Clearly you weren't listening that day
in Freshman English when the teacher
explained all this. If you think
every "I" in literature (this, by the way,
is literature) can be equated to the author,
you probably believe in Santa
and that when a TV personage
invites "you" to enjoy the show,
he is referring specifically to you.

By the way, this, too, is a persona,
you stupid, illiterate bitch, and it's
addressing a persona. It's certainly not
ME talking to YOU, not the REAL you, if you
know what I mean, and you know who I mean
when I say you, referring, of course,
to the you who knows what I mean --
because I would NEVER talk to you
this way,
Dear.

Dean Blehert

And your wife never knows

Your wife of 30 years exchanges a smile,
never realizing that, in your youth,
you looked at girls as pictures
of racy sexuality hidden under those pimples,
tired eyes, runny noses, focused on
their tits, the promise of a glimpse
in their gym shorts, t'allure
of those who said nothing,
only gave smoldering looks...
unless you've told her, of course,
in a stupid poem!
MEN!

Just a Person

Young, you want girls,
and the girls you're supposed to get
(you know, "get"), in the movies,
anyway, are cool and sexy and
give you that look and swish away
with a racy double entendre and you
know, you just know,

but all the girls you meet are
just persons, school kids,
like you, sexy, maybe (some of them),
but also saying mostly dumb,
ordinary things, sometimes having
blackheads or tired eyes or
runny noses, so you concentrate

on their tits, their rosy cheeks,
the motions of their hips and
masturbate over carefully crafted
images of them and keep
trying to turn them into
something unattainable so that
you can attain it, and, if you're really
lucky,

maybe 30 years later, you'll
exchange a smile (for starters)
with your wife and notice
with relief and joy, that she's
just a person, like you.

Dean

New Blog

Correction: Subscribers to our Waterbug Blog (58 of you!) are invited to subscribe to the new blog: Dear Reader, which will be hosted by blogspot at http://dearreader08.blogspot.com. There will also be a forum for artists at http://dearartist.blogspot.com.