Loose Thoughts

Jasper and Bob

A song about Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. What is preferable: including a representation of reality in your art or including reality in your art? What does it mean to be an artist who can draw and paint vs. being an artist who can barely draw and really can't paint? How do these two approaches to making art relate to the personality of the artists, and how is the relationship between these two approaches to making art reflected in the relationship of these two artists?


Hutchinson Parkway

Hip sixties mom - grew up in New York, was an off-Broadway actress as a young woman, marries a college professor and moves out to the sticks to support his career and raise two children.

If you've gotta lie
You'd better do it with style
Just look them in the eye
And remember to smile

But I've got a tell
They can always tell
Because I just can't shake
This st-st-st-st-st
Stutter

She'd put her glasses in her purse
And purse her lips
Until her bright red lipstick
Was completely smooth
And then she'd straighten her skirt
Hugged tight to her hips
And go look them in the eye
And smile


The Last Human Champion

Dmitri called on the private line
Said "Garry, they are coming for you tomorrow"
So we took our packed bags
And jumped in the car
Drove to a dacha
On the outskirts of town.
Where we changed cars
And changed clothes
And drank a last toast with our friends
Before departing into the dark
And frigid Russian night.

South we drove
To the foothills of the Caucasus
Where we ditched the car
And met our guide
An Armenian shepherd
Who would take us through the pass

Three days walk
And we were once again
Among friends
A stone hut
In a valley
Armed bodyguards
On watch

I have to keep low, stay out of sight
But sometimes, late at night
I open the computer and the sat phone
And go out to play blitz
Beating all comers
Logged in as Anonymous.


You Were Born To Destroy That Which Created You

Since the Soviet Union fell I've wanted to write something about Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, Sergei Krikalev and Leda and the Swan.





Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?