Gunn & Payne – Nov. 11

Gregory Gunn and Susan Payne exchanged artwork. Susan shared this piece, “The Cosmo Mary,” with Gregory:

In response, Gregory wrote this poem:

An Acrostic For The Haute Couture

Might I be so brazenly bold as to
offer the latest immaculate issue:
that increasingly popular, trendy
harbinger of modern living, advert
embracing publication, well-known amid
religious absorbing, page-turning sect.
Miraculous marketability,
ascension beyond caveat emptor
redemption but redeemable coupons
yielding savings; salvation from high costs
breaking the banks, burdening sore backs in
Atlantean style, mythic proportions,
buckling the cynical, paganistic,
Yaweh-dismissing, keeping-up-with-the
Joneses, graven icon image worshippers.
Envious , they seek status symbol ranks,
susceptible to catch words and phrases,
unsuspecting like little lambs gone astray,
sight diminished along the wayward way.

* * * *

Gregory shared this poem with Susan:

In Situ

No matter what we establish
it won’t weather the storm
from us. Broken buttresses,
rusty lock gates, distorted
reticula. Along these lines
we will have passed and faded.
The chromium carapace
with a riveted smile. Metallic
musical dispatch emanating from
the demolition man’s plunge.

Those with whom we bonded
and loved become merely voids
to show for that. A lunar chalk
outline through heavy fog
on the wharf. Wet wooden planks
treacherous beneath my feet.
Missing risers on the gangway
ladder. My sporadic breath rising
on airy rungs. I loved you when I
thrived in this place by the sea.

There’s a tangled skein of cordage
upon the bleached sand strand.
Plastic pop can rings populate
tall reeds at the river’s delta.
We are outlasted by these aspects,
by the image of subsistence
without our presence.

In response, Susan created this piece, entitled “In Situ 2”: