#64: Ode To The Acrylic Kids (Creativity)

Some May See It As A Glut
Of Ego On A Canvas Strut.
You May Hate, Though N'er Re-Butt . . .
With Your Yes's, No's, And Maybe.
The Bottom Line Is Clearly Cut,
Express Yourself, Or Turn A Nut.
Practice, Pray, And Ponder, But:
You Can't Have A Baby!

A whooshing sound was all we heard
out the Wagon door,
as we were hurling onward to
god only knows where-for.

The outside looked real smoky, and
dusty brown and gray.
We couldn't tell if we passed through
either night or day.

The card read 'Needlepoint', and so,
we readied for some laughs.
Jo and I prepared to see
the State of Arts & Crafts.

We landed in a howling gale
that apparently had sucked
everything from the countryside
able to be plucked.

Were Wagons only mortal cars,
and not of magic born,
then we too, would've easily,
from off that hill, been torn.

Down in the valley we could see
a vortex of debris.
An opening in the center seemed
to suck voraciously.

Jo and I then proceeded to make
our way on down the hill.
The wind increased its howling speed,
and became a little chill.

We approached a portal absent of
a structure or a frame.
All manner of stuff was flying in,
without design or aim.

At first we stood beside the hole,
and witnessed it absorb,
all kinds of worlds of being stuff,
both real and metaphor.

I can't be sure what happened then . . .
a misstep or miss-queue,
but suddenly I found that Jo
and I were sucked in, too.

In a blinding flash, we were surrounded by
an artist's studio . . .
a warehouse version of New York flats . . .
a behemoth bungalow.

We watched the flotsam flying in
and dance around the place,
embedding itself, by accident,
on some medium or base.

Canvas, wood, and clay and stone,
metal and moving lights . . .
all kinds of crazy things did bloom
for us two bedlamites!

The stuff was sticking to its place
in all sorts of designs,
until each easel presented us
a picture of some kind.

It's crazy, but I must report,
the multi-media feel,
the works that moved and spoke to us,
seemed likely to reveal.

Musical paintings could really sing.
Those with dancers, danced.
Stage-scene paintings were acting out
parts of their performance.

"Maybe we're just getting a break . . .
after the idea-dowsing
we've been through, we deserve to see
the State of Art Warehousing."

Jo reflected as I spoke,
but didn't say a word.
The expression that he wore told me
he probably hadn't heard.

He stood there almost like transfixed,
squinting down the hall,
to the light and dancing shadows that
played along the wall.

Dodging tornadoes of all debris,
we angled through the room,
through all the kinetic and complex shapes
each canvas did assume.

It took us over an hour before
we finally made our way
to the pavilion's other end, where at
we found a strange display.

A warehouse door was opened out
to what appeared to be
empty trailers attached to trucks,
and loaded with artistry.

The strangest were the teamsters with
their forklifts and wheeled carts.
Beer-bellied beyond belief, but they
labored with all their hearts.

We watched them sweat and slave awhile.
They grunted through the day.
They could barely see to work for all
their stomachs in the way.

"I've studied these guys since we got here,"
Jo confided then.
"Of course, you see, they're each with child,
and all of them are men."

I looked again, prepared to laugh,
and tell Jo he was full,
but looking back, I saw the sign,
"An Artists' Labor Pool."

So, sure enough, my friend was right.
This union was about
giving birth while on the job . . .
and guys, they were, no doubt.

Of course, they didn't notice us . . .
they labored through each chore,
packing crates with canvases,
and loading them out the door.

And we looked back along the path
our recent steps did trace,
and saw the strangest symbol come
to slap us in the face.

The cavernous walls were throbbing like
they meant to circulate
plasma through some artery'd walls,
that art might decorate.

More and more, the room began
to take organic form.
And that's when Jo and I were both
caught up into the storm.

It was like an earthquake-hurricane,
an undulating gale,
that whipped us up, and tossed us with
the rest right out the tail.

Jo and I laid on the ground
as trucks began to roll
away from the door that had become
an organic, bloody hole.

"It's vaginal," Jo turned my way,
as if expecting me
to argue, though he had described
just what it looked to be.

I guess that was the first we got
a good, exterior view
of the room we'd finally managed
to make our journey through.

As disgusting as it now might sound,
the coincidence was kind-a
weird that here's a building that
is one big huge vagina.

Along the side I caught the sight
of our Buggy in the sun.
No sound or movement told us that
the lesson wasn't done.

"Okay," I said, "let's figure out
what has happened here.
The urethra-opening sucked us with
an entire hemisphere.

We wound up deep inside a cave
where worlds of blown debris
brought canvases to life with art,
quite accidentally.

We wandered through a warehouse that
grew progressively
more organic and vagina-like . . .
Shit, this sickens me!

I mean, come on, it makes no sense,
unless the Teamsters show
there's something here with pregnancy
that we're supposed to know."

"Maybe it's pregnant, maybe it's not,"
my friend philosophized.
"There are no infants or symbols of
kids, you realize."

"You're right," I said, "so why are there
symbols of giving birth?
What else can go through pregnancy,
here or back on Earth?"

"Good enough, boys, take a break."
A rumbling, thunder-roar,
came down with scary power that
with time, we'd might ignore.

"You've picked up all the imagery,
where lots of travelers fail.
Usually, their masculinity won't
permit a sight so frail.

But I'm proud of you, you did not shrink
away from all the blood.
I guess I'll lend a hand and help
you get back on the road.

This State is all about the arts . . .
that they are solely styled
by genders that can otherwise
not beget a child.

Identity, and place in life,
on which I can't say more,
but that they feed the artist's drive,
and haunt the mother's core.

Creatures that are given brains,
and come to understand
the universe around them must
determine, if they can . . .

who and what they can become,
and why they're given breath.
It is this quest that places man
in races against death.

He seeks to leave his mark on life,
and women are thus blessed,
that they contribute other souls
to win that mortal test.

But men, poor things, are luckless, and
are forced to their beguile
of proving they were ever here,
and their being was worthwhile.

So men, it was, invented art,
and men, it is, that do
all the greatest art the worlds
now know, or ever knew . . .

and all because no man has learned
the simplest truth on Earth . . .
you play around with jeans or genes
and wind up giving birth."