Eradicating the Rodent
       

Picasso said to Braque, I see a squirrel
in your painting, there among the table top
items—tobacco pouch, pipe, etc. No,
said Braque, until he looked again;
he was, after all, a formalist
in control of what the viewer does and does not see.

Now that you mention it, I can't not see
it there. Annoying rodent, haplessly squirreled
away in mind, cracking the formalist's
nut. Picasso, was, of course, at the top
of his game, and had nothing to lose or gain
if someone spotted a penguin where no

bird was, in an etching, say, of two blue figures we know
are alone, with a heel of bread, some wine.We could see
the interloper and laugh again,
as now we see it/now we don't. He could kill the squirrel
if it twitched its nose, bring down his brush hard on the top
of its skull. Those silly, gutless, control-freak formalists

got it all wrong. But what happens when formal
coherence is attempted in an abstract composition. No
need to explain or eradicate. A spinning top
appears, let it twirl, as long as you want to see
it, spin along, watch for its bite, but feed the squirrel,
and after losing yourself in dots & swirls & shapes, look again

to see them transformed. A jazz musician gains
your trust by introducing a well-known form
of a melody, seizing it, mocking it, then squirrelly
letting it dissolve into the chord changes. He knows
that we know, just as the painter will see
what we see, and each time it's like taking it from the top,

once more, like a simple gift, cherry on the top
accidental, momentary, stage front, dropped again
to foment desire. Don't you see
how it works? How formalism
abhors a vacuum, that there should be no
need for eradication. Look, gone in a flash, that squirrel.

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Copyright © 2019 Leonard Kress All rights reserved
from Craniotomy
Moonstone Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission