July 21 2012

Henry Kravis, of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts,

Known corporate Nabisco raider

[Famed for raiding Nabisco, the hostile takeover king,]

Twirling his drink inside a party scenario

Admires from a chilled distance Tracy Emin,

An artist no stranger to money

Who’d pull the sterling string

From the pound note to behold:

Yes I am wed, my wife runs the Guggenheim,

No we are proud and shameless,

Art and money’s marriage most natural.

But for this I’d make an overture.

Are you real? Like a cookie?

I’ve seen your cohort’s bovines split

Inside tinted amber picture cubes

Been astounded by his diamond skull’s

Pockmarked empty stare.

What moneyed insouciance at play!

What  gold-plated middle finger to conscience!

How I love John Galt and good jokes!

I’ve a sweet tooth also,

Sated by the white trash

Squeezed between two manhole covers

Like peanut butter jammed

Inside a human asshole

All to fool the Selective Service board,

all shite and beef fat twice-run through a blender.

What have you, riot girrl

That I have not seen yet

Other than the names of your tumbles in the hay

Emblazoned on the walls of oh-so tony galleries?

Just what do you have for me

That Damian hasn’t got?

From where comes your fire

Never to be equated with talent?

Hey Donald! Drop by for a bit

Navigate your combover to this port

As respite for your storm

And meet Tracey, Tracey Emin.

Your accent among London haunts

I  cannot locate so long since

I’ve passed above Gravesend in transit

Or in Barclays shaken hands with directors

To finalize the deal that is an art

And is Art, but yes how are you

Doing and yes I do admire

All the belletristic brassiness

Of  your catalogue of hookups

Check out the fonts that spell me

Baby, any day! My tower! (Echo!)

I am woman whose art is therapy

In my total branding I scuttle

The working-class badge/bondage gear

As deep blot upon escutcheon

All roads are ladders

To a plutocratic hub.

All roads are leading

To a Fortune 500 list,

No longer the boys club.

Just watch me move in.

All roads are golden ladders

Of plutocrats and wisemen

Joining hands with consorts

Art and commerce

Patron and art-worker

Fat commissions and placemats

Emin rhyming with Neiman

Leroy, descending gilt clouds:

Ahoy, doll! Love your hustle,

You smasher of paradigms,

Though you’re not my style.

No labels, Leroy, I insist upon,

Though brandings do not stigmatize

Let the world flourish with them

From table napkin to billboard

Or the screens on city buses

Advertising Pan de Bimbo

Brandished as to say I have arrived

The hipster couple shed

Of their bohemian accoutrements

For commute from Great Neck

Or to Mayfair from Swindon.

Donald to the late Leroy:

Among my Louis the XIVth

Gold-flaked banisters helixing

To the cozy breakfast nook

Of my priciest of suites

Your laminate placemats

[on which could spill

Buckets of Tang and not wilt]

Of splashed paints crudded up

Into thrashing polo sticks and helmets

Have become both passé [or louche]

[or whatever] and incongruous:

Leroy, you’re truly fired.

(A thud, as a heart sinks

In an absent uneasy chest.)

Plutonian depths no longer

Apply  to hell we represent below

This is a bad heartburn

And the fire is above.

Besides guarding Dis,

Pluto guarded gold-hoards.

Where was the interest,

Where the returns?

Like Timon, he folded

And cradled dinars in his arms

Feeling them melt from flesh

Fed on acorns and tubers

Void a world of exchange,

Cash stuffed in the mattress,

Whatever regent or personage
Stamped on bills or change unnoticed.

Tracey’s shift of balance on high-heels

Clicking like those of adjutants
On floors of hardwood or composite tile
Of lobbies or throne rooms
Signals her delight in this attention.

Your sense of fun’s infectious

You monopolize the fun virus,

The virus of fun that informs

The toons, toons one to three.

I am the sartorial toon

And she the toon of crisis.

We both like getting tattoed

To show in cool vibrant bars.

She excels as weeping witness

While I hold the fort down.

A toon that acts as she does

Becomes a self-spinoff.

And there are many spinoffs,

Not all of them successful.