3 fans

he had three fans

basically:

one of his daughter's friends,

a guy he met at a swap-meet,

and a homeless woman who

had one of his postcards in

her shopping cart. if he could

he would gather the three together

and scold them for liking something

of his that some would call a gift

and others would say robbed the creator

of the time it took to produce someone

so lacking in other "talents."

all he knew is that,

when looking at one of his paintings or another,

something was missing -

the something that defined genius

or facility or a deeply perceptive

way of organizing the world. he wanted

what he lacked. he was thinking that,

if he could just focus on - let's say

the foreground of a landscape so that others

could see that he really "got it" that he understood

all the layering and foreshortening and all the other

artistic tools it would take to render space in a coherent

fashion and to fool the eye if you will - he could

die happy and know he wasn't a charlatan

at least for the three that liked what he did.

things became fuzzy for a time and it was probably some

synaptic shorting-out that disabled his reason and his memory

to recall the lessons taught by the masters of his youth -

the guy that ran the scout-house, or the guy that

conducted the baseball team, or how about the one-legged

man who coached ball AND taught school. they didn't really

know that he could do anything but pitch badly and run slowly. they

thought he was just a kid looking like all the others - concerned

with the snow cones at the concession stand or the razzing from opposing

players with whom he attended classes. there were foreign things at work

in this world of suburban experimentation with housing and schooling - there was

the sense that the elders of the previous generation knew that they had

somewhow spoiled a whole generation of misfits who couldn't do

anything and never really wanted for anything. there was a generational

remove from the land and from agrarian reform and a connection with the dust from

which one came and to which one returned.

pictures became important - more so than the printed word. the flickering pictures

holding a whole generation in a spell - hostage with no ransom set nor expected. this artist guy (with the three fans) - he knew how little he really knew. he knew that he lived inside a vast grid and that one move in any direction and he would be hurled from the grid, never to be seen again. he so wanted to leave the grid and live on his own, but connectivity was his craving

and everything he touched he demanded to know intimately - like being close to something would salvage the remainder of his tattered inner-workings (won't stoop to use the word soul).

at the end - after many intervening years, when one-by-one all the he believed, felt, and loved had been snuffed out or exposed as a lie - he was shrunken down into the footprint of his own cadaver - starving for meaning, resolution, and love. he took his only possession at the end and, unfolding it carefully, plunged it deep deep

into his chest.

(c)jim hill (4-12-2012)

defang

i was a worker

of that you could be

proud

and not wonder

like those ladies whose

husbands drive

in different states

sitting all day behind a wheel

with mythologizing songwriters

raising their cache. i was unfortunate

amongst the ethic gatherers who

bled from the fingers and the brow.

i could've befriended someone like whitman

who would love the salty taste of my skin

but would write instead about something

that would take the suspicion away

and raise his own cache amongst those

craving the methodical evocation

of working stiffs and their dirty-skirted

mothers wiping up the filth of the working

class poor.

(c)jim hill (4-6-2012)

complex

i can't like him

anymore

because of his stature. he

is short

and wears a curiously

anachronistic waistcoat

with hand tucked inside. is

he pulling a pistol

perpetually? is

he channeling a great

leader, and at

the proper moment,

offer victory,

surrender?

(c)jim hill 12-09-2011

myth fire

One could say we were
All like that: violating
The sun and its
Perfect light. Dead branches
Indicating defeat at the hands of a merciless
And punishing fire.

I say that, in the face of such
Tragic ends, we seek a different fortune. Become
Glad in the shadows ; delight in the dark of
A dense and muffled beat of a heart
Pouring out its purity in healthy doses
In little acts that all people do:

According to the hint of a plan
An execution of an ideal, not content to scratch and
Forage, but to establish histories so rich
One would have to believe the mythology,
Mistaking it for fact.

(c)Jim hill (11-10-2011)

slip and slide

you say

water transport is

a major theme

and afterall

it was water that led me here

and out of the birth canal -

the "grand canal" as i like to refer to it. i

frequent the water in gulps

and hydration during the hot times

(in the old town tonight).

we look

at boats and imagine ourselves

privy to private islands and ferry-crossings

but then realize we like the dry land under our

feet, the blazing sun refusing to let us grow

old gracefully, instead offering those characterizing lines

that distinguish us from our younger, ignorant

colleagues. they with their pretty, vacant

outlook and refusals to look past tomorrows

nor their parties.

no, i'd say we don't

even like the dry land. could be

we like nothing anymore

or any less than we did

when we emerged from the

dream that had us and hid us

in the clouds hovering above those

treasured institutions:

birth, school, work, and death.

(c) jim hill (9-16-2011)

dr stingy

the doctor was

stingy

with his treatments

i want ponytails

he suggests inserts

and walkarounds. with this

i put on the right shoes

and step away from

the program's

ledge.

(c)jim hill 9-16-2011

a father looks back

even the mistakes (his)

seem to be art. there are the

drippy little dabs of insight

and breadth -

each containing something

for which we can all relate. if the

genius loves company then he sold

himself to a high-bidding firm, then said

goodbye at the sign of the first gold watch. his

children thanked him for the selfless

sacrifices (which bubbled underneath

the discourse of life-lessons at holiday meals) and

countless contributions to class projects

and his signature "love yous" without provocation.

through it all gold spattered

and spit upon already gilded recollections

of childhood recalled for the posterity

of a hint of a chance at residing near

the relics on cool, white, unvisited walls.

(c)jim hill 07-24-2011