| The Highest Art
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Empty
| My father was sort of a cross between | 1 |
Pablo Picasso, Magnum P.I. and Darth Vader. | 2 |
He was an Artist, had lots of hair, and was a Dark Lord. | 3 |
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He taught me that Art is 'good' if you like it. | 4 |
And no other critera (for anything at all) | 5 |
was as important. | 6 |
He praised the qualities of a good gin | 7 |
and the healing powers of Mexican Food. | 8 |
He was also aquainted with the Darkside. | 9 |
He was well accustomed to running | 10 |
to and from the demons of his childhood. | 11 |
He never drank milk. Why not, I asked. | 12 |
It makes mucus, he said. | 13 |
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There were three rules that he enforced: | 14 |
1. Always wash your hair twice. | 15 |
2. Never leave a light on in the house | 16 |
if you are not in that room. | 17 |
3. Always look me in the eye | 18 |
when you are being yelled at. | 19 |
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He was charming, unless you were his son. | 20 |
He was funny, unless you forgot to pick | 21 |
up the dog poop on Saturday afternoon, | 22 |
or missed a twig with the hedge cutters. | 23 |
Then the darkness would become visible, | 24 |
and enter your heart and wait there | 25 |
like a silent intruder. | 26 |
For my loyalties, I got repaid in full. | 27 |
There isn't a parental pain he didn't inflict. | 28 |
There isn't a childhood hell I didn't get sent to. | 29 |
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But mostly, he taught me what not to do, | 30 |
and how not to live, by negative example. | 31 |
And I am thankful for this greatest of gifts. | 32 |
Because now, more often than not, | 33 |
I see through the bullshit. | 34 |
Now I have patience for those who cannot | 35 |
or will not love. | 36 |
Now I can see in the dark. | 37 |
Now I see beauty in everything. | 38 |
He taught me the highest Art. | 39 |
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25 Jul 10 |
Rated 9.5 (9.5) by 8 users.
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Comments:
this is the most brilliant, self portrait I have ever read. Honest is what I feel
and almost seems like irish whiskey wake? perhaps even drawn up while the body is being washed and dressed. Love this and a warm hugs for you Empty.
— unknown
^impressing a ghost is not the easiest to do. 35-39 made me cry.
— unknown
most children of artists end up selling real-estate. i figure what you're doing is marking out a lot of space in this poem page so you can sub-divide it later into little haiku lots.
this is very wordy prose with no reason at all for the line breaks -- it's not a reflection of whatever your father may have known about form -- and, that would be the only reason for blabbing about your artist father as though the artist part were what's important. it doesn't seem so, since talent can't be taught. you've been taught to be a culture-vulture and a cocktail-party entertainer. it's not a pretty sight.
— bmikebauer
HAHHA h bauer you kill me - so funny you are. cocktail party entertainer.
you were a tad bit harsh don't cha cha think. Come on rooty tooty frooty.
— unknown
it's trash, dude... not at all anything more than the kind of thing people drop at parties to get laid.
— bmikebauer
Aww Empty this is fantastic. I have missed you!! I hope you are back.
:)
— mandolyn
Really clear cool look at a relationship which holds both its bitterness and guiding light in equal measure
— larrylark
I've written a few poems like this myself (my mom was a paranoid schizophrenic and should never have been allowed to try to raise children). one of the cool things about poetry is that its a great catharsis--but damn, it's a real trick to refine such catharsis into art. If the narrator is you, you come closer to doing that than i ever could. A few questions: what purpose do lines 12 and 13 serve? They feel extraneous. Lines 28 and 29 feel like hyperbole--No matter how terrible the abuse, it's difficult to believe that you have suffered everything a fucker of an imaginative parent can inflict. Me, I got burned with cigarettes. A patient of mine (at age 2) was thrown into a vat of hot grease. I like the unintentional lesson that the narrator was taught.
I am left wanting to know more about the father's art. Was his art great or mediocre? What was his medium?
Thank you for posting this.
I like line 37.
Do you capitalize some of your nouns for added effect? For me, this kind of capitalization calls A.A. Milne to mind--which kind of drollness is cool, if that's what you intend.
— pittsburgh
very interesting stuff
— psychofemale
justin (the man who wrote this) is a great artist. i am not sure about his father, and actual art- but i can say this poem conveys the exact picture of what his childhood was like. L2, hits the nail on the head.
— mandolyn
yes. we don't know if his dad isn't a hack 'abstract expressionist follower' making art for k-mart. there's no energy in this that would show that dad had any -- it's maybe that the kid grew up too suburban and spoiled -- to sophisticated in teenage ways and never growing out of 'selfish'. guys who are really intense do it anyway, and don't ask anyone's permission to have a past. this one doesn't want to let it go, and i wonder why? probably, because dad didn't really teach him anything. in the old days, the kid would have been dad's apprentice, and have spent his early years cleaning and making brushes and learning color and how to mix pigments On The Job -- working with dad to finish a fresco... then, maybe, get apprenticed out to another artist so that he could learn another style.
jean reanoir was sometimes an ok film maker, but a great producer and director. he says it helped growing up around all this culture and with all these different artists and writers. you know that most visual artists actually like writers better than other painters or photographers? it's because writers can think. if this kid can write, and can maybe think, then he ought to find a greater scale and scope to write out his talent. this kind of thing isn't great to anyone of you who'll read it in, say, ten years, and has writing talent. it's ok that people like it now, but now isn't forever, and it would be a shame if this author thought that praise here meant anything like eternal praise.
— bmikebauer
first i was like, o cool father, and then i was like 80s sitcom father? and then i was like (and,like) oh..My father>_>. anyyWhoo, an enjoyable read, mayd me laugh and then made moody.
— Rss233
*then made me (typo demons)
— Rss233
How in the world of your christian god do you know mandee?
You seem to know so much, are you nosey or what?
— unknown
are you talking to the author or someone else, about mandee?
— bmikebauer
unk- i know the person who wrote this. he has been away for some time now, but it looks like he is back. i know him face to face.
so back the hell up...
:)
— mandolyn
L12-13 - that is pretty funny.
— mandolyn
humor and love
— unknown
:)
— Empty
It all starts with a solution. The way is to any way again give college students to intrude while you are working . I am absolutely captivate with your information it will help me in my paper services
— unknown
$
— unknown
I just read this to my spouse- he remembers working with your dad. He said he (himself) is a lot like 16-19. He does want you to look him in the eye when he speaks to you. (yelling does not happen that often, thankfully) But then he laughed at rule 1 and said Lines 12-13 are true.
O.O
— mandolyn
^ I said 'spouse' because he does not want anyone knowing his name.
— mandolyn
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