Flowers
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The Poem
Flowers
Give the man his flowers.Not after. Now.While the paint is still wetand Superman is still mid-stridethrough the best idea he ever had.
The movie theatre is in the background.Barely visible. Already distant.The beginning that didn’t know it was a beginning —a man with a camerafollowing artists through the nightbecause the night was where the real things happenedand he wanted to be where the real things happened.
Then someone pointed the camera back at himand said now you.And he did.This is what happenswhen you stand close enough to the fire long enough.
Now you
Post No Bills —posted everywhere,on the wall that is also the art,on the art that is also the wall,on the thrift store that is also Los Angelesthat is also the beginningthat is also right now.
The joke was always that the billand the prohibition of the billwere the same gesture:look here, something is happening here.We looked. Something was.
Batman watches from aboveand keeps his opinions to himself —because even Batman knowsyou don’t argue with a manwho convinced the world that the factory was the studio,the studio was the factory,Warhol was the blueprint,and the blueprint was the point —that everyone gets a Superman,everyone gets a crown,everyone gets a wall full of colorand a reason to keep going.
Which is either the democratization of artor the commodification of rebellion.The answer is yes.The answer is always yes.The answer is both.
The 1950s woman says listen to your inner child —which is the whole instruction,the entire curriculumof the factory, the thrift store,the movie theatre where it all began.
The inner child who looked at the wall and saw the canvas.Who looked at the kit and saw the art.Who looked at the flowersand threw them instead of the stone.
I am the one throwing flowers.Yellow. Flat. Anonymous.Not because the kit isn’t a kit.Not because the factory isn’t a factory.Because he came from a thrift store in Los Angeleswith a camera and an audacityand a love for the thing so largeit became the thing itself —and the movie theatre is still there in the background,the distant beginning that made all of this inevitable —and the paint is still wetand Superman is still smilingand the wall is still becoming —
The one throwing flowers
and that is worth the flowers.
That is always worth the flowers.