Mannerist - Dean Young

It is said a hole knocked in the ceiling
of the flat Caravaggio fled, skipping rent,
explains the light source of those later works.
The problem for the authorities, a lot
of pissed-off swordsmen, was catching him
and we can only guess someone finally did
as his body was never found. Constant
in this world are the problems of landlords
and lighting and the sense of something out
to get you. I tried to solve the death-rattle-
in-the-middle-of-the-night problem by draining
the radiators, the encroaching-shadows-
every-moment-your-last predicament by reaching
way out the window and sawing off the spooky
scratching branch. Because of what I read
about consciousness and death, I did not
intervene but watched the broken bird grind
its eye in the sidewalk then I turned
away, un-mercy killing. I tried to solve
the why-am-I-so-dumb problem by reading books
I couldn’t understand. How about just leaving
it all alone, not getting out of bed,
the problem itself perplexed by a plethora
of variables: tax bracket, traffic pattern,
therapeutic workshop. Exhausting failure,
waste of raw materials, disastrous dis-
proportion like forever adolescence. Just
lying in the innocent-seeming gloxinias,
you can’t go forward and you can’t go back
and staying still ain’t an option. Perhaps
it’s best to embrace a what-the-heck philosophy.
Put some words into the word balloon, hardly
matters what as the cartoon concerns a conversation
between a trashcan and a duck. It’s spring
in another week. You’re not so awfully off
after all. The heart is drawn from its yellow tub
still beating.