AESTHETIC THEORY

Poetry is the fertilizer

from which the rose of experience grows

O twisted red rose of worldly experience

that like a Mandala hypnotizes

with the central pistil of its being

round & round the pretty girl

twirls a rose between her fingers

the way a dancer twirls heedlessly

between the peeling plaster column

& her expert guitarist

smiling from the excruciating tension of her art;

one rose clenched between bright jaws.

She is not pretty, the way a rose

might be

but she is dangerous, in the way

of a thorn

poison-sheathed.

The oval of her sweaty face

pale pink in folded concentration

is like a baby’s budded in

upon itself with rancor;

who knows what worms

her mind gnaws on

& on, as her shoeless feet

stamp petulantly within

two tables’ shadows.

Her toes, like flattened

rough & reddish petals

circle among the tracery

of past steps, about

& about rocked forward

she dances, heels raised,

hands crossed between

breasts are twirling a rose,

& the guitarist declares she is dangerous

the way a thorn is.