On behalf of the Beautiful

Kaye McDonough

On behalf of the Beautiful

Quentin Tarantino saves Sharon Tate: some thoughts at the Farragut Memorial on the bloody past

Let us go to Life
& lay flowers at her altar
   children dreaming
         in the imagined
embrace of wings of stone
         carved or
         barely carved at all
   as if a wave had
   washed over that stone
   running with Gothic alphabets
         changing it

Let the children dream in
        that stony fold
          imagined
                  among the long dead                 

          * * *

In the megaplex the mythic cowboy
         artists
                  of sharp intent
                  bring with them
                  the Sword of Vengeance
                           a flame
                           to eat mad hate
         Mocassined footfalls
                  advance
                  protecting the future
            from a ripped womb
            Beauty violated
Who was present to protect her
         in that bloody zeitgeist?
         No one quick enough
                  or armed
            to stop the horrific past:
            left now to Art
                  to settle & undo
The artist’s shield, Mind’s
         Great Eye
   takes in
         that horror
    & stands between it &
         The Beautiful
undoing, yes, that past
         on behalf of Eternal Life
a stone wing wrapping
         a child at rest  

            in a park
            in summer
            on Sunday
            in Manhattan
the blood-letting washed
         by great waters
   that an unknowing
            child might
            close his eyes
            in dream

Poem based on two visual works of art: Once upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) based on the Charles Manson murders that included the killing of pregnant actress Sharon Tate; and the Farragut Memorial in Madison Square Park.

In Praise of Sage Kotsenburg

             “I kept it going and I kept it weird”
--Sage Kotsenburg

Conditions are not optimal
     a less than mellow ride ahead
     in fact unsafe
he starts his run
         with just a board to fly on
                  & no wings to burn
At the steepest rail
     in full layback
         he drags his hand
                  a flaw
                  in phantom homage
                  to his stony surfer roots
         graffiti shades of urban
                  skateboard kings
                           whited out
                           in the distant cool
The Rough Trade of Snow
         shoves it up patrician ski
He’s on --
     with a full cab 1260
         that is 3-and-a -half 360s
     He clocks his hands
         to check the widening gyre
         in a grab he’s christened
                  Holy Crail
Soul-shredding now
     in the gyre where forms are made legit
     before they’re fossilized to art
         he pulls
                  a 1620 Japan
                  that is 4-and-a-half 360
                           revolutions
                                    in Russia 

“It’s the Olympics, man, the Finals!”
     Stoked
         the kid lays it down
         The square root of radiance
                  slopestyle
                           is rad

Snowboarding Slopestyle was derived from surfing and urban skateboarding. Sage Kotsenburg paid homage to those roots, winning a gold medal in 2014, the first year it was allowed at the Olympics in Sochi. To me, he represents The Artist who makes Art where he/she finds it: “in the gyre where forms are made legit/ before they’re fossilized to art.”

Kaye McDonough is a poet and sometime playwright, publisher, printer. Author of "She-Stag and the Tiger of Wanawatu" (LARB), Zelda: Frontier Life in America (City Lights) and Pagan (New Native Press). Working evermore on The Spell of Bohemia, 20 years in North Beach, San Francisco.