The Big Picture

exquisite corpse

Man Ray, Yves Tanguy,
Joan Miró, Max Morise,
you architects
of exquisite corpse,
bring a woman in,
dream the Siamese kiss.

You four men cannot
deny the yin of orifice,
the phallic sticks
of dynamite, pistols spraying.
Mark it, baby! Come and piss!
State of the art!

Only Miró dropped
the obvious violence—
beneath the body of sex
and death he gave us dust,
creature, appendage,
a lit match, the vague line.

The monster sits
on the back of a man,
dead or simply
fallen with the weight
of his side
of the binary.

Blind to design, men love
to pass sketched paper
hand to hand,
pass land and women
like pieces of folded power.
A game! Art of the state!

Layer by layer they build
upon fragments
of other men’s clues, desire
daring us: unfold this mess,
marvel at our artifice,
our clever disaster.

2017/2018