More poetry

But not Superman

The celebrated artist took his life.

Hero to many

he defied stylistic consistency,

fully grasped small anybodies

trying to understand,

and perhaps order

the show, not a career.

Revealing.

Pursuing.

Videos from earlier,

which began in the 1980s,

it was organized,

insightful.

The main attraction here was working when he died.

An old compressed air tank lies on the floor,

a hose connects it to the bell-jar,

and each picture in close-up:

a bottle. 

Thus you behold

different colored liquid that is swirling because of a stream of air,

You behold

in pristine miniature under glass

the chaos that nearly consumed it.

A grown-up’s fantasy of childhood 

as a blissful, golden age;

it was a vision,

 the repressed memories of real-life tarnish and terror.

The utopian culmination of a crystal city

was marred

by a clear awareness of its own history.

This Superman, champion of truth,

had been reciting passages from literature about horrors

before he slept.

Superman meant something more;

saving the world in great and small ways,

was an idealist of the first order,

a deeply disappointed one.

 -Claudine Woodard