Crafty by Brian McParlton
Facing death with Mr. Bill
“Oh, No!”
– Mr. Bill
The exhales of my adolescent past are reruns
of cheaply orchestrated, Mr. Bill safety videos
in mists opaque enough to view dust in projector rays.
In this reproduction, someone pulls down the coiled screen
just in time for Mr. Bill to get run over by a car tire having not
looked both ways before crossing the street. He rematerializes
in the next shot edging closer to the side of the roof, mouth in an O,
of a donut shop looking at a budget sunset. The repeated catastrophes
meant we knew what was about to happen next, the older of us all
wishing for crueler annihilations of someone other than our young selves,
others hoping that just this once Mr. Bill would walk slowly backwards
towards a door, extend that clay arm of his to the doorknob to open
it with a satisfying click, one that meant a promise, then climb up
the steps and back into a safety his steadfast naivety provided him.
Perhaps an “O, Yes!” as he crawled into bed to rest his putty head.
Instead, to defy our youthful expectations, a stuffed seagull cajoles him
by the scruff into a trashcan just out of shot, but realizable enough as to keep
us buying the perpetual reincarnations of Mr. Bill. Facing the death of another
seems almost completely natural when at an age where the disappearance of a pet
meant paradises and vacation homes where none ever were to return, and we’d
never expect them to. They had passed onto a greater state of living and who
would we be to rob them of that. At least Mr. Bill never repeated the same mistake
twice, audiences’ attention and dwindling funds spent mainly on colored clay. Everyone
is trying to make something of themselves. I now admire, I think even back then,
Escapism under dim lights
I’d like to try a life that stalls in the middle
of some grand orchestral arrangement, to the sound
of someone grinding their teeth from too much
amphetamine. Then, as the crowd huffs and puffs
to the size of cartoon versions of themselves, the
entire roof, raised originally by the hands of
trained carpenters, comes tumbling down
on top of them all. There would be only one man
standing, the concession stand attendee, who
has had enough of this shit and punches out
admitting this is the one thing keeping him sane.
And as he goes home to sit on his couch, or make
a cup of coffee, I pray his team has won and
his spouse is beautiful, that time seems unmoving
so that he can get lost in the consistently
inconsistent body of cloud in the distance
while his dog takes off his socks for him.
I hope, when he calls into work, he encounters
the DNR of a “Your call could not be connected
please check the number and try again later.”
The seductive art of eating ice-cream
Your tongue does not speak decipherable words
as you lick in small circles, reticent of a skier caught in
an avalanche, the excess of vanilla that would otherwise sticky
your fingers. I don’t mean for you to take this sexually,
but how could you not. The clouds in the sky are
eaten away by the sun and dispersed to other areas
of the earth. We purse our lips against liminal spaces
underneath a sun slowly killing us, too. Our puddles, however,
are in neat rows over fields. A dropped cone calls upon a congregation
of ants. They eat of the corpse and leave the tombstone behind.
We are frenching at the park. Other couples lay in the grass,
writhing under the heat of each other’s body and the last warm
day of fall. The cattail in my mouth wrestles with yours while
hiding from autumn crows. A dog walks close enough
to look up your skirt but cranes the cone
into her maw before scampering off.
About the author:
Anthony Procopio Ross is a Poetry MFA Candidate at Minnesota State University, Mankato. When he’s not teaching composition students, Anthony spends his time writing poetry and creating hand-cut collages for himself and to support the literary arts, making flyers and covers. Anthony’s poems have appeared in Thrice Publishing’s 2019 Surrealist Anthology, and Levee Magazine.
In the artist’s words:
Since his first exhibition, as a teen, at the Oak Room Gallery in 1965 in Schenectady, New York, Brian McPartlon has honed his skills with acrylics, watercolor, oils, pastels and mixed media sculpture. In 1973, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1975, he founded and directed the 63 Bluxome Street Gallery in San Francisco, California. McPartlon’s technique seeks to present true depth of field through layers of shapes and colors. His process includes staining, pouring and spraying, and a diverse set of brushes from a traditional 6” house painting brush to palm fronds, cacti, animal bone fragments and his fingers. A single painting may take him ten minutes or over 40 years to complete. The large bold canvases can be ominous, antagonizing, invigorating and breathtaking.
The range of colors and depth of each of McPartlon’s works evoke powerful reactions from viewers. Observers of his works struggle to not touch the textures or crawl into the portals that exist in the layers of his paintings.
Exhibitions: Pie Projects, Santa Fe; Cinq Gallery, Dallas; International Art Museum of America, San Francisco. Press: LandEscape Art Review; Magazine 43; Dream Noir; Arkana; and Santa Fe New Mexican.