Velvet Paintings
When I was young and there was no internet
We immortalized our heroes on Velvet Paintings sometimes sold at roadside stands near gas stations and fast food restaurants
And depending on the size of a free wall in your living space
You could hang one or all of the three martyrs
Abraham
Martin
And John
Our revolutionaries were photographed on wide backed wicker chairs seated next to large potted palm plants under a red black and green flag arrogantly breaking the fourth wall while staring directly into the camera as if to say:
Try it and find out,
Motherfucker.
When Martin was killed everyone said:
We’ll never see another Martin in our lifetime; but, we did get a Barrack and that worked out just fine.
No offense, Mike.
We thought there would never be another George Wallace, too.
But we got a Trump and suddenly I didn’t drink orange sodas anymore
or like to play Spades and other card games that used trump cards for victory
Every hero creates his own villainous counterpart
at least that’s what M. Knight Shyamalan taught us in the new [old] mythological tales.
We have to stop whats happening before we see dead people
Everywhere
And have to paint more velvet paintings.
At some point we will discover the MAGA Kryptonite and the heroes, she-roes, and androgens strong enough to wield it.
Pray Tell and Uncle Clifford come and Z snap these bitches into the Phantom Zone.
Throw shade where shade is due from the overly long ties to the blaming everything on ANTIFA
But cast some light on 1/6 which was truly an inside job.
That’s why Pence told the secret service:
“I’m not getting in that car.”
The praetorian guards killed Caligula — maybe Mike Pence’s “mommy” had let him read a history book or two.
Velvet paintings of John Lennon who once quipped that his back up band, The Beatles, were bigger than Jesus.
People got upset and I don’t know why
Because Jesus got a velvet painting, too.
“…Everything is gonna be
Alright…”
Sing for us Audre Lord and quench our thirst for Justice with the blood of martyrs and mothers offered in vulval libation cups.
Georgia
shower us with your labial petals and prove to us that the soft and pliant can overcome the stiff and hard
Even the idiocy of a football player who never sat in a wicker chair in his life but who himself is considered a Bizarro World hero.
“Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind..”
Memories of familial barbecues on southern home places where you could be poor
But you were never hungry
Don’t look back.
Just keep looking forward
We have come so far.
But we still have a ways to go.
Velvet Paintings of Fannie Lou who told us to “stay together children she was sick and tired of being sick and tired. Her radio broadcast was silenced
But we heard her anyway
The heroes have to be equivalent to the villains and as numerous. Here we are.
Still together.
“We don’t need another hero
we don’t need another way home
All we want is life beyond this Thunderdome”.
Where cartoonish carnival barkers sell lies, blood and circuses
And we painted velvet paintings for the fallen
To remember.
