Drew Struzan
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Genius and Brilliance
Are momentary possessions
What better to prove the point
Than a real live
Legendary walking tombstone
Named
Allen Ginsberg
A supernova
A flash
A sneeze
A burp
A fart gently whispering in the seats of my pants
The old bald-headed lover of cocks
Sometimes bearded sometimes not
Big glasses and a gleaming golden tie
Singing about
Bombs
And songs of jack
And love songs of Neal
Twenty year old mutterings
of
A dead cosmic workman’s tight assed fucks
Cocks nestled in waiting thighs
Amongst the “ooohhs” and “yeesses”
And a singular yawn
On an uncomfortable theater seat
At 10:30 in Santa Monica
Carve me free of this wilderness
hunk 'o love
oh hunk 'o love
like old bus on circuitous route
you never come on schedule
catch me unprepared
newspaper ajumble
diesel fumin'
air brake heavy
you pull up longside
"Passion's Ave. via Desire Heights"
your headsign declares
o hunk 'o love
tootsie roll of my heart
you catch me with my pants down
juicy big vanilla coated tongue
up the back and to the tip
that glistens satin drip
rolls off the lip
with a pleased Saturday morning hello
o hunk'o love
my fast lane judgement
fogged
hi-beams flooded against
second hand glare and unusable light
yellow dashes tap out mysteries ahead
dangerous curves
and Mulholland cliffs
I drive steadily faster
contrary to the better angels of my nature
lulled by the purr of your big V-8 seductions
power windows usher in the night
tunnel in over
tuck and roll and roars and rushes through my hair
as distant crickets cry cloaked in manure damp scent
fire and air
leather and steel
she will take me
just south of vegas
just short of bright light dreams
Dear Old Pablo
Dear Old Pablo
you are long gone
and petrified bones.
your works as historical
as Edison.
and still I can't quite figure you out!
and well...quite frankly, baby,
you're too weird for me.
Pablo?
what have you done to my eyes?
Thomas!
turn on the lights!
The LA Riots 5.5.1992
I am burdened by deepening fear. The riots have faded into history, your history. I wonder if you trouble over those days bygone. Is it part of your vernacular? Is it part of your living communal horror?
The LA Riots of 1992 were less, I believe, a reaction to any one particular issue and more symptomatic of a social dysfunction. Certainly an act of social injustice sparked and fanned the flames of indignation, but the central issue is vast and ambiguous, like the neural misfiring sparking along the desert floor of our unconscious.
America displays its schizophrenia daily. Tune into your Sony TV screen. It’s there. Flickering at a maddening impulse in red blue green its hatred and injustice, it pulsates alienation. No, I’m not implying your TV is the cause of america’s woes, but it is one open infected sore. It‘s not the disease, it’s the breach, the hole in the dike, a place where the infection can enter.
A few days ago I overheard someone speaking about Tom Clancy and with the end of the Cold War he’d be at a loss for material. America had no one to hate any longer. America had been embroiled for so long in its “domestic” dispute with its former lover that it had no one to slap around anymore. And when an abusive father runs out of punching bags, he goes looking for something new to bloody his knuckles against. Needless to say, Tom Clancy will find an inexhaustible supply of material for more novels of shadow armies and hate mongers as America turns on herself. The apocalypse, fear and slow death. I smell a book or a movie there somewhere.
I write in a confused and torn state. I am confused because this outbreak was foreseeable, that it should have come as no surprise. I am confused because it was allowed to happen. It has all the trappings of a social experiment, cold and calculated. If we were in a hospital, this feverish patient wouldn’t be subjected to a sauna, would she? No, sympathetic medicine would do all it could to stabilize and calm the symptoms. Only in a clinical experiment is the subject suffered to the threshold of endurance. It is here that I believe that the evidence lies within. An illness exist, it is evident that we are all suffering some measure of the disease, but though it is obvious that it functions at epidemic proportions there is no attempt to, first, admit a disease exist, and secondly, apply some preventive measures to identify and treat the sickness.
Sadly, I am a fatalist. It’s in my blood. My people face death by smiling it in the face and taking a stiff drink. Unfortunately, the patient is dying. I’m not saying give up. I believe we need to find a healthy donor body, and salvage what we can.
I believe the “issue” is not an issue at all, I am not tied to the emotionalism of the discussion. I am not bound by the morality or the trappings of righteousness. Racism exists. Racism exists like cancer. Racism is a disease like any other disease, the disease of evil. If we concentrate our attentions here we need not worry of cutting the head off the wrong snake.
Our President is the perfect expression for his time; “Historically speaking incidents like this have always brought about change.”
This is a statement of gross insensitivity, the detached language and blaring illumination to the source of the problem. The statement illustrates the creed of the unenlightened and the realm of no imagination! Is it not disturbingly clear by now that the institution of politics have failed us all? The average man’s involvement in the forward momentum of this civilization is nil. If you believe your vote is meaningful, ask the occupants of a bullet-riddled Black Panther headquarters, or AIM resisters looking down the barrel of a .50 caliber how they feel about the power of their dissent.
The system, in which we live, politics, is corrupt, decrepit and disintegrating and 1992 should be marked as a defining moment in the overall condition of the patient.
The LA riots will not go down in history as an isolated event. I believe it will mark the beginning of the end for the “old ways”. Speaking broadly, not to limit ourselves to a social-historical context, we must move away from the antiquated canonical cotton-gin of a system that has been plaguing us for so long. I don’t know the difference between a slave and a sharecropper, do you?
Time will only tell.
Written 5/5/1992
The Cockroaches
The sweetest voices
sing to the
cockroaches
maybe
that is why
they do not
leave
men
men-
standing around a boat-
barechested-
tanned-
laughing-
smoking-
pointing-
touching boat-
touching men-
looking serious in the salty glare of the sun-
as i pass-
i wonder-
what is it they are doing?
they are doing what makes women jealous of men-
they are doing what makes women love men
standing around a boat-
barechested-
tanned-
laughing-
smoking-
pointing-
touching boat-
touching men-
looking serious in the salty glare of the sun-
as i pass-
i wonder-
what is it they are doing?
they are doing what makes women jealous of men-
they are doing what makes women love men
on mount olympus
Once,
I had ridden high upon the shoulders of giants,
and smelled the sweetness of the clouds.
But they have all fallen,
long ago.
Which I suppose,
is a testament to the fact
that gravity treats us all
equally.
I had ridden high upon the shoulders of giants,
and smelled the sweetness of the clouds.
But they have all fallen,
long ago.
Which I suppose,
is a testament to the fact
that gravity treats us all
equally.
A deep and fleeting glance
Skin caramelized by the sun.
Darkened mysteries tangle like vines,
Peering through
Dense foliage that
Shroud her face.
A clump of strands descends the forehead
And perfectly bisect the eye.
I have marveled and marvel the marveling of those strands
Draped flirtatiously across an eyelash.
Eyes almond-shaped as big as avocado pits,
Glisten deep tar realities.
Lips in eternal pouts and beauty mark aptly named,
Capture me as I am,
Prisoner as I am,
In my luscious cell .
Upon cast iron pipes,
I tap no message of escape.
My head is cradled in arms.
Bewitched in the luxury
of my life sentence,
passing time,
one tic at a time.
Dumbly,
I surrender to these frolics,
hanging like music in the air.
Across the way,
a bird bounces upon the winds
of my joy.
He too is a momentary traveler
on
ethereal currents .
Darkened mysteries tangle like vines,
Peering through
Dense foliage that
Shroud her face.
A clump of strands descends the forehead
And perfectly bisect the eye.
I have marveled and marvel the marveling of those strands
Draped flirtatiously across an eyelash.
Eyes almond-shaped as big as avocado pits,
Glisten deep tar realities.
Lips in eternal pouts and beauty mark aptly named,
Capture me as I am,
Prisoner as I am,
In my luscious cell .
Upon cast iron pipes,
I tap no message of escape.
My head is cradled in arms.
Bewitched in the luxury
of my life sentence,
passing time,
one tic at a time.
Dumbly,
I surrender to these frolics,
hanging like music in the air.
Across the way,
a bird bounces upon the winds
of my joy.
He too is a momentary traveler
on
ethereal currents .
hell is the torment of resisting what is inherent in human nature, remembering.
you haunt the halls of my waking hours
it is a luscious torture
for sure
like sweet sherbert on a hot afternoon
inaccessible behind frozen glass
cradled in a nectarous fog
lingering on my mind's pallette
a ghost of sorts
it is a luscious torture
for sure
like sweet sherbert on a hot afternoon
inaccessible behind frozen glass
cradled in a nectarous fog
lingering on my mind's pallette
a ghost of sorts
Prayer for the walking wounded
my mornings are spent muted
behind drawn drapes
i refuse the entry of the sun
rumpled blankets from a restless sleep
sleep laced with hallucinogenic occurences
i know this morning differs from the previous
but my conditions do not change
i dream of chai tea mornings
behind drawn drapes
i refuse the entry of the sun
rumpled blankets from a restless sleep
sleep laced with hallucinogenic occurences
i know this morning differs from the previous
but my conditions do not change
i dream of chai tea mornings
the garbageman
Born with eyes
and a love of the trailing light
Cursed by beauty
and her persuasive ways
to the seductive dawdlings of the
Delicate gardenia
How I envy the garbage man
perched atop the step of his filthy carriage
grimy gloves play on his stained cigarette
the smokey appendage breathes as he jumps from running board
to street
dangling from his unshaven lip
that shows the slight blistering and cracking
of days in the sun
toil
cursed by beauty
ensconed in fume and stink
all his moments are cluttered with trash and the ripe scent
of decay
of rot
He has no time for a butterfly’s lazy moments
As it clings to the rim of an encrusted can
with delicate spiny hands
He does not whisper in pollinated verse
to his sweet love the hibiscus
He only dreams of the next trashcan
in a haze of
exhaust
afterall,
he is simply
the garbage man.
and a love of the trailing light
Cursed by beauty
and her persuasive ways
to the seductive dawdlings of the
Delicate gardenia
How I envy the garbage man
perched atop the step of his filthy carriage
grimy gloves play on his stained cigarette
the smokey appendage breathes as he jumps from running board
to street
dangling from his unshaven lip
that shows the slight blistering and cracking
of days in the sun
toil
cursed by beauty
ensconed in fume and stink
all his moments are cluttered with trash and the ripe scent
of decay
of rot
He has no time for a butterfly’s lazy moments
As it clings to the rim of an encrusted can
with delicate spiny hands
He does not whisper in pollinated verse
to his sweet love the hibiscus
He only dreams of the next trashcan
in a haze of
exhaust
afterall,
he is simply
the garbage man.
King Kong
King Kong entered the room
stamping his mighty feet and
drumming his sweaty chest.
He strutted his stuff,
and bellowed and bayed
breath thick with
Gulf Stream August.
King Kong left for you and I,
no room to maneuver
or retreat,
no place to cower or hide.
We trembled both as HE poked his great black finger
into every nook and cranny,
scratching for a morsel,
a tasty treat,
with sinewy
filled centers.
We closed our eyes
and hoped for
a
happy ending,
But we had both seen
The film
And knew
That the
Natives
always faired poorly
stamping his mighty feet and
drumming his sweaty chest.
He strutted his stuff,
and bellowed and bayed
breath thick with
Gulf Stream August.
King Kong left for you and I,
no room to maneuver
or retreat,
no place to cower or hide.
We trembled both as HE poked his great black finger
into every nook and cranny,
scratching for a morsel,
a tasty treat,
with sinewy
filled centers.
We closed our eyes
and hoped for
a
happy ending,
But we had both seen
The film
And knew
That the
Natives
always faired poorly
On Genius and Stupidity or don't go drunk to poetry readings for Silvia and Zachery
Genius and Brilliance
Are momentary possessions
What better to prove the point
Than a real live
Legendary walking tombstone
Named
Allen Ginsberg
A supernova
A flash
A sneeze
A burp
A fart gently whispering in the seats of my pants
The old bald-headed lover of cocks
Sometimes bearded sometimes not
Big glasses and a gleaming golden tie
Singing about
Bombs
And songs of jack
And love songs of Neal
Twenty year old mutterings
of
A dead cosmic workman’s tight assed fucks
Cocks nestled in waiting thighs
Amongst the “ooohhs” and “yeesses”
And a singular yawn
On an uncomfortable theater seat
At 10:30 in Santa Monica
A clown
You may say that I am a clown who burns
with a passion beyond pink ballon
poodles
and slap-stick cheer.
I am a clown
who sings to sheep with
mad faces.
I am a clown lookin'
for a three ringed circus
with a stadium venue
of
Ringley Bros.
and Barum and Bailey's proportions.
With an atmosphere of electric
vapor
and rancid popcorn butter.
For crowds fat with anticipation
and entertainment greed.
I want to be a player
in the dark circus.
I am a clown.
I am a clown who sings.
I am a clown who sings to the sheep
with mad faces.
So here's the deal.
I need a circus
and
you need a clown
and you obviously don't want
another
red-wigged
floppy-footed
aberration
of a child's torrmented
nightmare.
You want a serious clown.
A mature clown.
A clown who walks
with
big- footed assurance.
A clown who knows how to put on
white face
properly.
Call me.
with a passion beyond pink ballon
poodles
and slap-stick cheer.
I am a clown
who sings to sheep with
mad faces.
I am a clown lookin'
for a three ringed circus
with a stadium venue
of
Ringley Bros.
and Barum and Bailey's proportions.
With an atmosphere of electric
vapor
and rancid popcorn butter.
For crowds fat with anticipation
and entertainment greed.
I want to be a player
in the dark circus.
I am a clown.
I am a clown who sings.
I am a clown who sings to the sheep
with mad faces.
So here's the deal.
I need a circus
and
you need a clown
and you obviously don't want
another
red-wigged
floppy-footed
aberration
of a child's torrmented
nightmare.
You want a serious clown.
A mature clown.
A clown who walks
with
big- footed assurance.
A clown who knows how to put on
white face
properly.
Call me.
packaged lies
White cross to Uncle Johnny
Ivory teeth,
Skin the color of darkened oak,
They walk single file,
in holy matrimony with the morning.
The air tumbles in the awakening warmth,
brushing life
against anemic foliage.
Tattered shoes cross indifferently,
that artificial barrier,
of a workman’s week,
melting away under Yahweh’s gaze,
in this holy day’s heat.
They walk past cottontails,
tamed under the ferrous temperament of the sun,
like delicate linen dollies,
these desert lilacs wait to blossom at the left side of God.
Seated at the left side of God,
beneath the spell of his breath,
blended row upon row,
before the virgin pageant,
their skin glistens.
Sweat mixes with sacred purity,
washed by the desert’s stained glass light,
sitting quietly, dignified,
the children fidget respectfully,
on the left side of God.
Row upon row,
on the left side of God,
work weary hands grip the rounded edges of,
lacquered sanctity.
Grimy honesty,
smiles from within,
a silent soliloquy,
as connivance emerges,
amongst the purring of prayer,
to challenge the veil of temporal spectacle.
And what be
the product of this conniving flock?
For all to see,
reddened smiles crane to witness,
the challenge,
gleaming white,
above the cliffs,
on the other side of the tracks,
atop Ruiz Canyon,
planted a breath beneath,
The chin of Jesus. RPM 6/2004
Ivory teeth,
Skin the color of darkened oak,
They walk single file,
in holy matrimony with the morning.
The air tumbles in the awakening warmth,
brushing life
against anemic foliage.
Tattered shoes cross indifferently,
that artificial barrier,
of a workman’s week,
melting away under Yahweh’s gaze,
in this holy day’s heat.
They walk past cottontails,
tamed under the ferrous temperament of the sun,
like delicate linen dollies,
these desert lilacs wait to blossom at the left side of God.
Seated at the left side of God,
beneath the spell of his breath,
blended row upon row,
before the virgin pageant,
their skin glistens.
Sweat mixes with sacred purity,
washed by the desert’s stained glass light,
sitting quietly, dignified,
the children fidget respectfully,
on the left side of God.
Row upon row,
on the left side of God,
work weary hands grip the rounded edges of,
lacquered sanctity.
Grimy honesty,
smiles from within,
a silent soliloquy,
as connivance emerges,
amongst the purring of prayer,
to challenge the veil of temporal spectacle.
And what be
the product of this conniving flock?
For all to see,
reddened smiles crane to witness,
the challenge,
gleaming white,
above the cliffs,
on the other side of the tracks,
atop Ruiz Canyon,
planted a breath beneath,
The chin of Jesus. RPM 6/2004
Pack of Lies continued...
Artist Statement
R.P.Moya
I am sitting in a coffee shop minding everyone’s business. The din of glasses clanking, the hum of the overhead fan, the rhythmic beat of voices has a narcotic hold on me. I am at once, voyeur, and spy. I am remote. I have become a detached listener to dreams, pleas and lies.
It would be easy to say that I am a visual accountant accumulating and tabulating items and then recording them in a ledger, but that would be an untruth. I do not have the accountability of a clerk, and accuracy is not my mission.
All I care for is the story. My story.
My medium of choice is in part one of expedience. I chose by sight, over a table of possibilities. Decisions are made by deciding which vehicle will get me to a destination rapidly and in one piece. Paint’s visceral quality, a pencil's precision or a jumble of junk that liberates me of all constraints, they are simply a means of transportation that get me to the telling.
Why so much attachment to the story? Partly, it is in my blood. I come from a lineage of people whose only means of expression, that act that holds off the dread of the night, the uncertainty of the next moment, finds its release and redemption in the songs of the land. Grandfathers to fathers to sons, we have all been fabricators of realities, stoking the fire with the poetry of our voices and hands.
In some respects, it is a personal search for all that has been and all that will ever be. I am embarked on the search for the mystery, the mysticism of the soul. I believe that the making anchors me in time, so that I may some day rest my hands upon an ancient stone and understand.
I make because, I believe. I believe in an eternal soup that envelops us all. When I make, my hands are deep within the viscera of life, and it has a warm and comforting texture.
When all is said and done, when the paintbrushes have been cleaned and stored, I know I have partaken in a rite intrinsically spiritual. I have shared in the purest pursuit given man, and find a kinship and solace in its doing. If I did not believe this, then my actions would be pointless and without value.
R.P.Moya
I am sitting in a coffee shop minding everyone’s business. The din of glasses clanking, the hum of the overhead fan, the rhythmic beat of voices has a narcotic hold on me. I am at once, voyeur, and spy. I am remote. I have become a detached listener to dreams, pleas and lies.
It would be easy to say that I am a visual accountant accumulating and tabulating items and then recording them in a ledger, but that would be an untruth. I do not have the accountability of a clerk, and accuracy is not my mission.
All I care for is the story. My story.
My medium of choice is in part one of expedience. I chose by sight, over a table of possibilities. Decisions are made by deciding which vehicle will get me to a destination rapidly and in one piece. Paint’s visceral quality, a pencil's precision or a jumble of junk that liberates me of all constraints, they are simply a means of transportation that get me to the telling.
Why so much attachment to the story? Partly, it is in my blood. I come from a lineage of people whose only means of expression, that act that holds off the dread of the night, the uncertainty of the next moment, finds its release and redemption in the songs of the land. Grandfathers to fathers to sons, we have all been fabricators of realities, stoking the fire with the poetry of our voices and hands.
In some respects, it is a personal search for all that has been and all that will ever be. I am embarked on the search for the mystery, the mysticism of the soul. I believe that the making anchors me in time, so that I may some day rest my hands upon an ancient stone and understand.
I make because, I believe. I believe in an eternal soup that envelops us all. When I make, my hands are deep within the viscera of life, and it has a warm and comforting texture.
When all is said and done, when the paintbrushes have been cleaned and stored, I know I have partaken in a rite intrinsically spiritual. I have shared in the purest pursuit given man, and find a kinship and solace in its doing. If I did not believe this, then my actions would be pointless and without value.
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