something far too big to become something far too small

"bad mood poem #2" /  from the poet who brought you "bad mood poem #1".

1.

I began the drawing with delusions of grandeur,

ensconced in the bowels of the printmaking department.

below me, the foundation of the building.

below that, serpents and dragons dwelled.

the preliminaries seemed plausible to the undisciplined mind,

but more than a few onlookers gathered around me.

I smeared charcoal over the surface and went

‘round and ‘round, and up and down across

the plane this way, and that way, from middle-tones 

to the darkest edge of reason.

those gathered soon began to drift to their upper level studios

two by two, then three by three they followed, until my time

of reckoning had come, standing alone and naked with what

was thought to become the singular image of my young artistic life.

2.

the picture plane was a misspelled word, irretrievable;

an indelible ink spot and not the crooning kind.

 

the picture plane was that old man jitterbugging at the reception

to the joy of revelers before his awkward fall.

It was neither one way nor was it the other way.

It was the winding road devoid of light, where

the road was the wrong road to begin with.

the SwizDee / 1963. 1964?