Enough Fake News

[tectak]

Today in New York City, a man of coloured origin,
unhindered by the law, sat down and painted.
Being by birth a palette in a grey town                         
he chose his brightest hues to demonstrate
his art. At first the blood-red paint  ran through the cracks
but some folk walked too close and carried foot prints
along the sidewalk, almost to the edge of town.
He called his work “It could have been me”.                                       this stanza could even have stood alone somewhere else.                                             
 
Today in  Greenwich Village  a man, who was no man at all,                pretending through poetics was my only thought, otherwise, I'd oust the last phrase
danced naked  in the rain, singing  about his loves.                             good metaphor for vulnerability
He twirled on fairy-feet along the street, threw kisses
to a crowd of two that hurried past him running  for shelter;              two isn't a crowd unless one "vants to be alone"
they never once called out, to shame or criticise him.                         i criticize the spelling here
Children  in a candy store, laughed loudly through glass panes;
they only saw a dancing man, splashing in the rain.                             no comma
He called his dance “Because I Can”.
 
Today in Some Town, Somewhere, a quiet man
took out a gun and fired a bullet  into his own right eye.                       this was abrupt to the poem, awakening a change of mood
Some folks who passed close by got brain and bone                             wondering the symbolism here, frightened by brain & bone
upon their fancy clothes. They hollered out in shock and rage,
but let the half-head guy bleed out just where he fell.                            really graphic
Some blood ran through the cracks but  passers-by
left dancing steps upon the sidewalk , skirting round.
The man, though dead, said  “ Enough is Enough”.                              I don't like how he 'was dead' but really wasn't, but I guess that's what the poem
                                                                                                            is all about.
Tectak
2018


I liked the ingenuity of the whole scene. A whole different angle from any other poem ever presented here, strangely using the entire space given, even incorporating basic psychology and, wow! that sure coordinates the entire scene. I like how the poem itself fits, giving a sense of someone very familiar with their surroundings, not wasting even an inch of their sacred ground. The title makes me smile. It inspires, makes me want to make up an exclamatory word I've never seen and later find it in the dictionary, but not be surprised, because it's such a cool word.


-nibbed

Hi nibbed,
Thanks for this. There is always room for speculative interpretation in any stuff presented in Intensive but I hoped that in this case the very obvious title would indicate that like a lot of people I am pissed off with false reporting and general misrepresentation of "things as they really are/were". You , of course, being a resident of the USA are more aware than I of what damage false news can cause...though we over the pond are probably in for more of it over the next decade. 

 If there is one thing, though, that concerns me on this and it is that I am asking a lot of the reader...far more than I usually do. This piece has a generic quality which you appear to have latched on to but there must be changes as it would seem that not everyone "reads" poetry as an art form in itself, rather requiring from poetry veracity and gravitas in equal measure. I will take your comments as quintessentially emotional and thank you for them...I refer particularly to the "dead man talking"...his death was a statement and I feel sure you get my drift An edit will come....
Best, 
tectak