Breaking Up With Persephone's Owner # 3
Titled: The Void Burns Brightest
My idol is William Blake.
I know that’s not the sort of thing you can go chatting about at recess.
People will think you’re a pretentious D-Bag and a potential security threat.
So I’ve never said it.
How would you even bring it up?
“Yo. You doing anything after school? I’m gonna shoot down to the museum and stare at the one Blake they own until closing.”
But you can tell a cat.
Before her owner broke up with me, Persephone and I used to discuss William Blake art all the time.
Do you have any idea what happens to you at school if you diss somebody’s Keith Haring swag?
By screen printing your own Blake merch?
If you design your own William Blake hat…
They’re going to think you will shoot the school up.
Just because you like William Blake.
That must mean it’s real art.
***
If you’d like to display an artistic side with an artistic print-on-demand tee shirt there are a number of other artists you can choose, other than William Blake, that don’t make you look like a pretentious D-Bag and potential school shooter.
But something about Keith Haring’s style lends itself to the new print-on-demand world. Something about his art is very cool to people who usually think art is for _____ (Mad Lib your slur of choice).
Yes now that BAYC has cooled off, Keith Haring is top dog again for a certain crowd. He hasn’t gone out of fashion with assholes since the 80s. And it’s not like his art isn’t good, because it is, or that he wasn’t cool, because he was. White bucket hat level cool.
I am triggered by Keith Haring fashion articles because why should he be the only artist on every shirt?
When will William Blake have his own fashion moment?
My allergist growing up had Haring prints all over his walls. I liked them. But at the same time they reminded me of needles. All those sharp edges on the dogs. All those juicy blood red hearts. Plus I was about to get four needles.
Only now that I’m older I realize that of course he had Keith Haring all over his waiting room. Of course. he did.
Why do doctors and college students like him so much?
The answer is easy.
Why do freaks like Blake?
The answer is hard.
And why did I choose the mystery flavor like a Dum-Dum every time….when I know damn well my favorite flavor is green apple?
Just to see if I was lucky enough to get a green apple?
***
Though it’s the least of your concern, my allergies are much better now, to the point I can even have a cat near me without having to go to the ER.
I still get allergic after I pet Persephone, but hey—
When I look at William Blake’s art I see his total understanding of this in a picture: the suffering is worth it.
The red itchy eyes, the gradually decreasing ability to breathe…
He was a blessed hombre, a genius of such capacity that anybody who publicly liked him in his own time was thought to be a town arrow shooter too.
He was also weird.
And here we are in 2023 and if you are a high school student and err in the ways of public affection for his genius you have got an immediate visit with the Disciplinarian coming your way.
“Marlon, I’m going to cut to the chase here. Is it true you like William Blake?”
“Err kinda. I mean I only mentioned it to my friend for like one second though.”
“Aiden claims you told him William Blake might be the greatest artist who ever lived? Called his Haring shirt normie trash. Normie trash? This true Marlon?”
“Ugh. It was just banter.”
“So I’m assuming it’s also true that you then showed Cayden a depiction of the… apocalypse as well?”
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh yea but only in a positive moralistic, ugh…artistic kinda way, I — “
“Marlon.”
Dramatic glasses removal. The sigh of a sixty year old disciplinarian.
“Are you a threat to this school or its surrounding malls?”
I think the distance with which William Blake was able to observe himself is like the same distance between how we see a cat and a cat sees us.
Not recess chat material, but definitely killer blog stuff right!
Right?
Operation Not Sound Like A D-Bag: Fail.
Operation Not Be Perceived as Gun Violence Threat: Ongoing.
He’s just doing his job.
I told him I’m scared of guns, which is true, but it didn’t seem like he believed me.
***
So far I’ve been so busy gushing over my guy’s art I nearly forgot…he is better known as a poet.
Señor Blake’s most famous poem is undoubtedly The Tyger.
One time I thought it’d be funny to change that poem to be about “my” own little tyger Persephone.
So I did that.
And while petting her I’d rap these shiny lines to a nasty beat.
Simpler Tymes.
~
Perseph Perseph, purring, black,
In the soft sheets of the sack;
What immortal hand or eye,
Framed thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare pet thy fire?
Ey gurr ey?
And what ex and what heart,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors’ clasp!
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did you meow Persephone?
Did he who made Reality TV make thee?
Perseph Perseph, purring, black,
On the soft sheets of the sack:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
