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Alpaca-Farm-Economy and Tomato-Can-Label Sestina (After Reading The Art Spirit by Robert Henri 17 Years After
It Was Assigned
in a Freshman
Life-Drawing
Class).
BY DAVID KOEHN
- - - -
There will always be the new movement.
Every year it spreads its idea like an umbrella.
Its promises come like fucking clockwork
And yet it always comes as a surprise. Freedom,
It's been said, comes from designing tomato-can labels,
Not from comparing the color of your shirt collar.
Every year's novelty is just another collar
Restraining another idea. Alpaca bowel movements,
Like a baby's, are almost edible. FYI: Sweaters labeled
"Alpaca" are not from the farms in L.A.
Alpacas are bred for more alpaca farms. Freedom
Is a word not allowed in poems nor in clockwork.
Yes. The pendulum swings like clockwork
In new movements. That said, the alpaca does collar
A pretty penny. But working for freedom
Is not part of that game. This movement,
Or that, shields you from ideas like an umbrella.
Don't sell alpacas, design tomato-can labels:
Henri insisted designing tomato-can labels
Is better than selling one's art. Like clockwork
Count on an alpaca farm opening. Like an umbrella
It will shield another idea. Try touching a man's collar,
And in that feel, find his life's movements,
From birth through his brief glimpses of freedom.
There will always be a new movement. And freedom
Will always be life's purpose in art. Sewing labels
On sweaters is better than starting a movement.
Better late than never ... but despite this, like clockwork,
An alpaca farm will open. Lipstick stains on my collar
Turn my wife on. The rest I need cover with an umbrella.
Another alpaca farm just opened, another umbrella
Economy for the lack of invention and freedom
In the mind of the artist. That man's collar
Is made of alpaca wool. An artist doesn't label
The man but selects the portrait for his work,
If, and only if, he sees in it a soul's movement.
The umbrella of work, of designing tomato-can labels,
Provides freedom from the alpaca-farm clockwork.
FYI: Touch your collar. Feel it? Feel that bowel movement.
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