I Dreamed of a Modern Art Show

Recurrent dream, 1983/6/28 and 9/18 by Chris Wayan

Square eye-cages on the walls. Lots of lines and sticks. Few balls. Planes, panes, stresses and strains! Look, a lone bold oval! Modernism's token Organicity. While the forms I live, Spirals, rays, curving wedges Sines and ragged grinning fringes Drops, crescents, eggs and eyes Are scorned, they're old, derivative, Obscuring "basic forms"-- As if Etosha Pan's sere line Is truer than its purple swirl of bird, Flamingo herds whose nude hue Of ripe fruit, sex, birth-blood, On indigo water, grassy sky-- Is an edgeless fact. Blurs are my life! These artnessmen Banquish with disgust, And rules (and often rulers) Pink and shapeless flocks and fucks: "Feminine", "decorative", "nice"... They mean it sucks. Their Pan pipes "clean" and "bold" and "mind" And like Etosha Pan it's usually mirage-- Dry, hard, and alkalined. Clean as songs that pipe through desert bone-- Sterile as that stopless monotone.