Otto Dix*

Taking a second look

When the crowd is gone,

The drawings are harder to see

Than before.

The music stops.

It vanished long ago.

The light on the past Is always dim.

The eyes of the ugly dead

Shine brighter in the mind

After left in another room.

Where is Lake Constance, now?

None of the living seem to know.

This show is amazing.

The horrors of war

Open their own drawer

And scream.

One young poet looks like Proust

But isn’t.

Another poet, an old, thin man

Barely fills his overcoat.

His eyes weep

Tearless sighs.

Cut flowers in a bottle Below his left hand

Either have no opinions

Or are keeping them to themselves

For the later time

That is now

Almost a century

After being painted.

When the dead

Becoming part of the landscape

Air and light

Reckon as much as beckon.

The fruits of their quarrels

Now belong to the squirrels

Whom no one ever sees

Now or then.

The pen

Calls to darkness with dankness.

The pregnant woman

And the widows merge.

The prostitute and the singer

Dressed in glaring red

Mingle but remain single

In the mind’s eyes.

The war veteran whose head

Became and remains an open wound

Cleft to the right as if left

Seeks closure but will never find it.

Plastic surgery

May have been invented too late

To help the head

Whose skin graft

Makes the brain

Resemble the intestines’ solitary stance.

All the figures dance alone.

Locked in their own frames,

Their names resist

But head and walk in opposite directions.

The horse’s cadaver

Would rather be

Otherwhere or elsewise.

Even the named

Remain anonymous or pseudonymous

In this realm.

Saint Christopher looking for Neptune

Finds a baby Zeus holding a cross

On his most available shoulder.

Tom Savage 8/28/10

*Written at the Otto Dix show at the Neue Gallerie.

Saint Christopher looking for Neptune

Finds a baby Zeus holding a cross

On his most available shoulder.

Spirit, Sex, and Food*

Drive into a storm.

See the ending first, if you must.

Trust your intuition.

Your mission is to endure.

Becoming part of

Someone else’s mirror

Only lasts for so long.

Babies come in all sizes.

Disappear but not into your money.

No one can save you.

You can’t eat your way to happiness

Unless you aren’t very bright.

Salute travel, even though it’s not the same anymore.

Nothing is easy in today’s world

But, of course, it never truly was.

There was more energy and determination long ago.

Everything hurts tomorrow, if not today.

Entusiasm exhausts before it fades and disappears.

It’s called aging.

Get used to it or die young.

Your wig is too short.

It’ll never make you a sport.

The court of regeneration is now in session, as always.

 

Tom Savage 8/14/10