these cold, known objects

                     are not very likeable –

    aluminium frames

      & curved glass with optical tricks –

but I am 'at ease'

    at this show,

there are some nice little-grin ideas –

     like television

            screening outside

        on the suburban home's front lawn,

& time-delay verité videos

  to amuse the usually uncrackable

                      hardened gallery-goer
 

*

 
have I flipped ?    into a strangely placid

          political zone    a lack of clutter

 and environmental concern –

these things are so simple,

              two hours here & I begin to enjoy

                    Dan Graham

more than Soutine, Braque, Delaunay,

    Bourgeois, Basquiat, Sherrie Levine,

       Agnes Martin – although

I can not deny my memory

       of her beautiful mid-1960's picture –

              'Milk River' –

nor her small collection

            of pick-up trucks

        glinting with polish – all driveable

& parked

outside her desert home.
 

*

 
I spend over an hour watching,

    surrendering to

        Dan Graham's big 'Rock/God' video

that makes a simple

          anthropological connection

            between US tribal & religious ritual –

group dancing, shaking, speaking in tongues-

                  and mosh pits and rock music –

         so when Patti Smith sings

Jesus died for somebody's sins

                    but not mine

                       I am converted.
 

*

 
Patti Smith was right,

              twenty-five years ago,

to say that rock music,

           meaning, then, for her, punk-rock,

would replace      painting

                    & sculpture

     as representative of untranscended

                       life itself.