Still Incomplete

Found Poem #16, Still Incomplete

Being a gay, Jewish,
Nearly deaf
And an otherwise disabled dwarf from Queens
Has its advantages.

And Harry Wieder
Used every one of them.

Mr. Wieder
Who was buried Friday,
After being killed by a taxi
At age 57
Spent most waking hours
Campaigning for:
Gay rights,
Safe public housing,
Health care,
Access for the disabled
And hundreds of local lefty candidates.

What he lacked in height
He would deliver in volume.

He sometimes attended
Seven or eight meetings a day
Even if he snored his way
Through one or two of them.

He was impossible;
He was lovable;
And determined to get the affection
He was due.

The only child of Holocaust survivors,
Mr. Wieder hardly considered
His own situation a hardship.

He never complained, for example,
How difficult it was for him to walk.

But it was.

Which is probably why —
After a Community Board 3 meeting on Sunday night —
He tried to cross Essex Street
In the middle of the block.

The passing cab
Abruptly ended a life
With countless agendas
Still incomplete.

Source: The New York Times. May 1, 2010

Confessions of an Art Collector or The Best Way to be Happy

Found Poem #15: Confessions of an Art Collector or The Best Way to be Happy

While recovering
From an attack of scarlet fever
As an adolescent,
Giuseppe Panza began reading art books
Intently.

To understand new art was like
Discovering a new theory in physics,
Or a new celestial body. It was
Born of this same desire:
To know the unknown.

At the beginning
My aim was to collect
100 beautiful paintings.

Soon I had those paintings
But I could not stop
Because my desire to
Have what I liked
Was too strong.

Giuseppe often seized upon
Little-known artists
Who would later attain
Blue-chip status
And command astronomical prices:

Dan Flavin,
Donald Judd,
Mark Rothko,
Philip Guston,
Claes Oldenburg,
Robert Rauchenberg,
Roy Lichtenstein,
Carl Andre,
Richard Serra,
Bruce Nauman,
Sol Lewitt —

Collecting art
Is a necessity for me
Because everybody wants to be happy,
And I found the best way to be happy.

Source: William Grimes’s obituary of Giuseppe Panza in the New York Times, May 2, 2010