“All art is quite useless.”
– Oscar Wilde
He bought a canvas from Wal-Mart in a
two-for-one pack on Tuesday night, along with some
cheap, black acrylic paint and white to go with it.
He bought them alongside his Parliaments
and Corona, which was on sale.
He tossed the canvas on his desk,
covered it in black paint, and forced it to dry quicker
by holding up a blow dryer.
He had a smoke and thought about what he would do
when Friday came—whether or not he would try that
new bar everyone’s talking about.
When he went back inside, the black paint was dry.
He smothered some white on his brush and used it to paint
the words
“I AM NOT A PAINTER”
He drank another Corona and fell asleep
to some old Lou Reed playing on his cheap
computer speakers.
It was dry by the time he displayed
it in class. One girl said it was existential,
this other girl said it was very post-modern,
and one guy even claimed it was a symbolic deconstruction of the contemporary isolated creator.
They all agreed it was brilliant.
A truly original work.
The truth is, though, he just
couldn’t think of anything else
to paint.
Burlesque Press 