pop the bubble

— after “Balloon Dogs” by Jeff Koons

who am i to throw stones at sculptures,
at the kanye west of white cubes? ninety 
million dollars and change won’t find its way 
to me this lifetime, and that’s all that matters.
 
Hal Foster sees the Good Old Days as just that,
eras of splendor and craft long since passed
and replaced with metallic pink and gold acrylic
balloon dogs as tall as rowhouses. foster grew fond
 
of picking at hirschhorn’s Capitalist Garbage Bucket
and its unofficial mayor, Jeffrey Lynn Koons. i’ll hand it
to Hal, because honestly, look at who the fuck even buys 
Jeff Koons. what is it about this stale piece of white bread
 
that tickles red dot after red dot out of patrons in fox fur 
and chanel? i’d believe that no amount of watching ink dry 
on eight figure checks couldn’t sway my most militant
morals were it not for my unpaid electric bill and crooked
 
spine nagging me every time i say it out loud. and even more 
wide-eyed and green, who am i to think my queer disabled 
little femme-voice could yell half as loud or sell for half as much? 
back in Foster’s Bad New Days, we flocked to the holy land 
 
of basel’s and chelsea’s track lighting. we surrounded studio 54’s
effigies to the warholism that art is what you can get away with, packed 
in between the whitest of white walls and staring at spectacles of junk 
painted chrome, reading off slogans in neon script borrowed 
 
from someone less important. Foster cries Capitalist Nihilism; 
before i found out what was actually at stake, my pop-art sellout 
self would spit that same warholism right back at him, but now? 
now it’s on, garbage bucket bro shows. bring it.

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