The Mission Of An Artist........ Poem by RIC BASTASA

it is allegedly the
mission of art to rearrange
reality.

to present the beauty of
such an ugly reality,

to make all messy things
adorable with the way the
artist presents them again
after some kind of strokes
and studied techniques,

the more famous ones of course
are too friendly to be liked
and adored and imitated,

or everything had become a
tradition of imitators, and to
say that one is original is
simply a lie, a kind of bad taste,
or some sort of arrogance,


i repeat, the mission of art
is to put back order where chaos
once existed, for instance last
night when we made love, the blankets
were thrown on the floor and
the pillows got wet and dirtied
with our sweat and other stinking
fluids from our bodies, and even
our naked bodies lost control of
their propriety, our shoes are
nowhere to be found, your hair
all shriveled and that morning
we looked like basically not our
kind and gentle selves,and
thus we must be artists now,
rearranging literally the chairs
and bed, and the blankets and
pillows and wear back our shoes,
never to exchange them again.

at 8 am, we are through with these.
i got back my body and face and
my own kind of gentle reputation,
as i put back too my name woven
in black silk in the pocket of
my polo shirt, as though it is
one kind of a white carnation.