Minimalism by Jeff Smith-Luedke
I looked at a picture painted white with a dot White, with that black dot and I thought Why bother painting that black dot in the middle With the white all around it, makes it so little Just a little black dot all surrounded by white And I look at this painting and think that I might Punch a hole through that painting with the fist of my hand And show that white painting that I was a man And it looked like it was made by a child Who was given a paintbrush and told to go wild But the child was retarded, only managed to poke The canvass with the brush with the black with a stroke.
And I was going to do it when the artist walked by Looked at my fist, the painting, asked why I would want to destroy the black dot made of paint Saying, “It’s so essential, an essentially quaint Expression of essential potential in all Of the people who have a potentially small Dot of their own painted on their soul; You see, in the white, there was a small hole So I covered the hole with paint that was black.” And then he turned away while I turned back.
I stared, stared, stared til the janitor came ‘long He saw me, stopped mopping, stopped whistling a song Stopped to ask me, “Hey sonny, been here long, you okay?” “This is rubbish, this painting, just rubbish, I say! I talked to the artist. Didn’t help in the least. So I stared for a while but my anger increased. This isn’t art, this white paint and black dot Oh, it’s a picture of a dot, but art, it is not.” The janitor nodded his head up and down And cleared his throat and uttered a sound That was like an agreement, but more like a laugh And said, “Sonny, you’ve looked at this more than I have But whenever I look, I don’t see the white And with that he leaned over and turned off the light.
And with the light off, the dot grew and grew Til it covered the canvass and he said, “Who knew That in the dark every painting looks exactly the same, Same portrait, same landscape, same romance, same shame, Could be reddish or yellowed or purpley or blue Or anything, ’cause, sonny, that’s what the dot turns into.” He went off and he mopped and he whistled his tune And I left and walked out and looked up at the moon Which looked vaguely and oddly familiar that night, So familiar—a black canvass with a dot that is white.