ars poetica

Post-Coital Depression

 

Now

after the parties

and after the Seders

a few scant hours before the POWs come home

 

(and home is here, this is their home, and this is my home,
far from my friends and family and far from their friends
and family and the things that any of us would call home)

 

Now, on a quiet Saturday, I ponder art for art’s sake

and art for society’s sake

and art which by its nature could never last

because it is too specific

too focused in its condemnations

and not at all metaphorical

 

Today I ponder the role of an artist

at the close of a war

and the dawn of an empire

And what it means

to believe in something

anything

in a time of blind faith

in blind and stupid leaders

 

Today I am an artist and a businessman

 

so I look over my projects

 

what is due, what is due me, what will be due soon

what must be achieved today so that

other artists will still consider me important

 

so they will come to my rallies

and come to my readings

and thank me for my politics

and thank me for my energy

 

Today at home

I think of the best way to relieve the burden

of living, writing, and voting in the country

destined to conquer the world

 

Today I think of stacks of burning bodies

 

dictatorships established in the name of democracy

 

and the motherless sons who will come back to America

and do everything they can to bring it down

 

and what does that mean to anyone,

anyway?

 

Today

the POWs come home

tortured beaten terrorized

and I will celebrate

with my city and with my country

and I know

that this is the last day we can call ourselves

a Republic of Laws

 

today

I fear for myself

I fear for my son

I fear for the Arabs

I fear for the Israelis

I fear for the Persians

I fear for the Americans

and I fear for every artist

who makes art for art’s sake

who won’t speak out

at the end of our world

 

—Jonathan Penton

“Post-Coital Depression” was previously published in the anthology, BANNED (Meta4, 2004)

 

Deep Throat Nihilism

 

Never forget that beauty is destructive

and poetry is its most destructive form

Poets do not ask permission

When you sing Ave Maria in the library, sing it loud

 

—Jonathan Penton

“Deep Throat Nihilism” was first published on kagablog.

 

Atonement Fast

 

If you could take

every time

a Muslim fucked someone over during Ramadan

every time a Jew killed someone during Pesach

and every single St. Valentine’s Day massacre

and put them all on the page

you’d have no more room

for angry little poems

 

—Jonathan Penton

 

In the Company of Them

 

So I’m sitting here in San Fran

In another used bookstore

On another hipster block

In this fuzzy hipster town

And I’m browsing through the bookstore

And I’m looking through the comics

There are shelves of graphic novels

And I think they must be recent

From the flashy well-done covers

And the hip PoMo technique

 

So I grab some graphic novels

And I’m setting on the benches

And I’m getting up, and walk around, and find a comfy chair

So I lean back, and I’m comfy, and I open up the comics

Which are trendy, which are clever,

Which have lots of lit-techniques

There’s this one with the stone giant

Who starts out as a hero

Who might be old King David

or George Washington Carver

and he bests the evil villain

who was belittling his race

but now he’s getting bigger

and he just keeps getting bigger

and pretty soon he’s enslaved all the creatures all around

the metaphor was obvious

though the subject imprecise

He might have been Israel

Or maybe Nashville, Tennessee

But the book was tortured, troubled

And so exquisitely drawn

The artist must’ve worked

As long as Karen Hughes been ugly

It was twenty-eight dollars

U.S.                                              dollars

with      proceeds            going to                                  charity

 

And I’m looking at these novels

And I’m looking at the shelves

’Cause there’s dozens of these comics

Dozens of these graphic novels

’Cause there’s dozens of these artists

Dozens angry tortured artists

Who sort of kind of made it

In the graphic novel world

But if you walk down through the Mission

Past the chickenhawks and junkies

You’ll find hundreds of these artists

Who will never, ever make it

Though it’s hard to see the difference

Between the published and the losers

Because every artist’s screaming

Every artist’s fucking screaming

Every artist wants to warn us

Of all the evil that we do

They’re all warning and they’re screaming

And they’re bringing up the issues

With their hip PoMo devices

And their so unique techniques

 

And besides the hundred artists

There’s a thousand folk musicians

With their lyrics tried and tested

And their chords so true and blue

And besides the thousand singers

There’s a million sock-drawer poets

Who’ve put down their San Fran paintbrush

To write of what will happen

To warn the world of what will happen

If we let a madman rule us

If we let the wealthy lead us

If we sign away our neighbors for another cup of Starbucks

And the artists are all drawing

And the folkies are all singing

And the poets all recite their angry lines at open mics

But there’s no one really listening

No there’s no one really listening

And the few who clap politely never do a goddamned thing

But the days are getting hotter

And our lives are getting shorter

And the Fertile Crescent won’t be fertile for four billion years

While MSN reports on Fox News

CNN reports on Slate

CBS reports on Sharpton

And Al Sharpton studies Fox

While the talking heads keep talking

And the bloggers keep on blogging

And the artists keep pretending there is something left to say

 

—Jonathan Penton

 

On the many things I do not understand

 

 

He speaks of a passion, strange and wonderful

 

 

I think of Joanie Vollmer

I study her death beside Tupac’s and Cobain’s

I wonder at the precise size

of the hole in her forehead

 

 

I think of writing, this attempt to force others

to spend a moment with the thoughts I think every day

 

 

He tells me that he caught the literary bug at a young age

 

 

That’s good, I tell him

Better that

than for it to catch you…

 

 

—Jonathan Penton