Here's another "braggin'" poem broadside. This one uses a JPEG image of a detail from a small, early Ray Johnson painting. A move like this is out-and-out appropriation, I know, but just the kind of move Ray made in his collages. Often riffing off fellow artists (Dali, Warhol, etc.), or using popular images (Marilyn, Elvis, Lucky Strike logos, the cartoon figure Nancy), Johnson continuously subverted, re-imagined and rebutted the world around him.

The poem is actually quite old. I wrote it back in the late 90s. It comes from an encounter with another subversive art act. Walking upon that ephemeral, visceral, conceptual mash-up nearly blew the top of my head off. Which, all Emily Dickinson freaks know, is the quality she expected from poetry. Art should wake you up, scalp you, turn your body on, etc.