shriveler's block

study for "rotten apple core", 1987, by claes oldenberg.

The air in the corridor presently
is frozen and makes museum pieces
of rotten fruit and spilled fluids.
Oldenberg and Jackson Pollock.
The smell is not pronounced,
but scarcely less palateble. It
remains close to the floor; hovers
there like a soul unable to flee.
Even the paint on the walls reminds
one of dead flesh. Traumatised
where once it was simply distressed.

Outside it feels less cold than in.
Primary colours in the wan sun.

Reds and golds and a bruised clear sky.

Halitosis puffs of vapour on the wind.
Dying insects trying to get back up
and right themselves over on the grass.

There is no turning the corner.

Shriveler's Block:

I haven't felt much like writing lately. I sat down at the keyboard and
tossed this off as an exercise in shaking the mental arthritis loose a little,
of stirring up the petri dish; just to see what words might come.
I had no intention of sounding quite so bleak.

Oldenberg's apple core reminds me of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse
for some reason. I think it's the buttons on his pants.