Slam-spanking hip,
a gin-grin.
Curled tubes, smeared.
Canvas rub-smudge, prismatic.
Called art when tequila worms
were the main course.
Madness benign,
lurked beneath your tray,
collage cubism you would slur
and the gallery bohemians would sip
dry white

pretending they knew their asses
from their trust funds.
Your painted nudes with middles
of mashed potatoes
and rhombus shaped tits
smirked in faceted wedges
tempered in sfumato.

Not Les Demoiselles d''Avignon
by any stretch of the canvas
although you shared in the barbarian form,
aggressive interpretation, quixotic.

You mainlined distilled grains
like a morphine drip.
Methadone memories
tripped
your schizophrenic fingers
into lightning strokes of color.
Rouge-faced, merlot lips, lemon-skinned,
and your whores disguised as nudes,
descending.

12/09/2000