[revision] Drawing, Painting, Figure (the hidden forms of debt)

[Karl Czajkowski]

Drawing, Painting, Figure
(the hidden forms of debt)

Cracked this old scifi
book to load my head with
new images, but it didn't
jolt me into sharpened
techno reality. Maybe 'cause
we've arrived, humanity
sprinkled between slick
plastic fixtures, the moss
on an old-growth pine
the bugs in the moss, stains
on the walls of some tall
gothic cathedral. Maybe I've
come to the years of my
tensed novella future, found
intersection with author
with his gantried existence
beneath one undulant glow,
the urban remission. Or is
it just I've read this
before, in school under
the hulk of an old copper
and stone spire, read
into 'before by your soft
urging? I barely stomach
history; waking once to heave
from all this drinking, I
wondered who else has done that
in my older-than-me kitchen.
I owe so much to the few
to the ones who tossed paint
from my scaffolds. Needed to
fill my head with your image,
I wish you'd have stayed
while I worked to repay you.