BOB HICOK
OBJECTS ARRANGED AS A STATE OF MIND
Where the fence has given up on itself and let horses
free on the road. Touching a red one as it passes,
seeing my hand as the far end of a room
or house, a country. Driving anywhere but church.
This in me or as me, what I was thinking
a moment ago to an etude played miles from here
in a studio: a man writes a letter
to our September 11th from his, from Chile
and exile, rats in vaginas and dogs
trained to rape. Snow now in August
over me, all weather is local, loco. A pad
appears in my hand, I appear to have this shape
on the pad. A cloud grows
like a tumor out of a cloud.
What if there are so many crows
because my mind invents them
whenever it wants out? A man appears
holding a clipboard, tells me,
this is the wrong question to ask.
I am sent to the back of the line, where a cigarette
makes the rounds. All of this
to tell you how I feel, sitting here, wanting
more coffee, value, as a helicopter
chops the breath of the day into pieces,
taking someone to the hospital in a red sheathing
of emergency speed. Someone burned.
Someone whose heart is working out the difference
between maybe, maybe not.
TWO-THIRDS OF AN OATH
After the dream that she and I
killed someone and were in jail, handcuffed
to retribution, not allowed to touch
thigh to thigh, three new trees on my walk
I have decided to mentor: stand up, breathe
through your stomas, accept that hawks
will dismantle pigeons
in the heart of you. Or they have taken me
into their care with the advice
that I grow something green
from my head. Either way,
these reachings for sky
arrived to my notice at a time
when I was vulnerable
to cheerleading, their simple push
to exist counteracting the growing
popularity of landfills
as fuck-buddies. You see my point: optimism,
when dressed in Cuddle Duds,
deserves to be whipped. But here, where a shoot
cracked shale, you could build a church
and still do a fine business
as an atheist, The Church of Dude, Do You Believe That?
One of those dreams I thought
was real, one of those instances of life
I thought was telling me to grow up
and ride this sucker bare-back. To think
that I'd ever ask to lead the parade.
The all cello band. Miles of clowns
with their faces painted on their faces. Jugglers
who drop as much as they hold
but keep at it, their knives on fire, their fire
on fire.
THE RULES OF ART NOW
The variety of just about everywhere, overlaid
in basic art-world orthodoxy, is perhaps
tongue-in-cheek's fundamental trauma. The conventional,
ungraspably starstruck adolescent girls
and axe-wielding psychotics, can range from echoed
to engorged, guru to shaman. Artists themselves,
indeed bewildering the subject matter,
are also touching contradiction, the thisness
of the that. Go on. Bend a knee, attend mass culture.
There are several reasons this model, profoundly
at odds with the ghosts of the branding wars
of the 1990s, is nothing but an aesthetic experience
of fashion. Thirdly, total randomness is hybridized
exclusion, there is much current influence
sweeping towards "help me, linguistic
and conceptual play with visually impressive objects."
This piece is both technically and a manifestation
of an idea, originally a vantage of meat,
a candy-colored, functionless sculpture
meant to encourage interaction and dialogue.
I like the balloons. Did someone say "pretty picture?"
Or to put it the other way around, "that is why
I love art. No victim, no priest. Everything
is for bells. There, one is world. Active puppet,
passive buffoon: king and a kick." Success generally,
or not at all. Elevated bourgeois passage of time,
as new forms of Flaubert displaced the unsuited,
cloudy idealisms. Though grounded and its enjoyment
are genuine, naturally, to utopian freedom,
we tip our hats. Liberate the opening remarks.
Through the fingers, away from that wider unfreedom,
run. What is really on offer here: things
do matter, more than others. Autonomy
through aspiration. Furthermore, useful sparks
inextricably celebrate green.