Poem: "Art" by Alison Stone

Art
by Alison Stone

Critics look for cycles, try to track art.
Arrangement of apples and pears. Snack? Art?
Cobain rhymed libido with mosquito.
The Fool leaps carrying a sack of art.
Fear behind every bullet or fist.
Bullies target the smart, fascists attack art.
My first-choice school – the University
of Illusion and Dreams. My fallback – art.
Some cultures vanish into history.
Invaders burn libraries, ransack art.
Blue jays squabble and screech at the feeder.
The Dolls sing about the poison black art
of the pimps. Remember when drag queens were
shocking? We’d blare “Jet Boy,” yak about art.
Diapers and mashed banana instead of
paint. The new mother wilts from lack of art.
Would you waitress? Face rejection over
and over? Live in a shack for art?
Among the airplanes’ taillights, one star, long-
dead. Among flea market bric-a-brac, art.
Farm-fresh, he marvels at the disparate
hungers of New York – Wall Street greed, crack, art.
Where are you, Alison? Sick of living
in the “real world,” I escaped back to art.