Estate

just let me drive into

this little stupid

textbook heaven where

everything is immortal

and not, burnished into its own little myth

xrayed outside of itself

dolled up

with chemicals and

paint, a side glance into

what doesn't matter

it suddenly matters

then it goes, it bleeds away

you know

the history but then you don't

amnesia is just as easy

deny what you see and then

it becomes the only thing you can

see

the shaky semblence of

abstract notions like

pledges and contracts and

leases

close your eyes

rub your eyelids

flashes of colors like

one of those xmas

tree color wheels

like a rainbow flag

in 1976

you dream of cities

and sleep inside

the dreams

of beautiful cows

america is a

stop sign

having an epileptic seizure

that's

about

it

("Estate," Robert Rauschenberg,1963, oil and silkscreen ink on canvas)