Five Fantastic Poems by Ivan Jenson

 

Confessions of a New York City Street Artist

 

I have stood with a homeless family

under a canopy on Fifth Avenue

during a downpour

all my paintings on a rolling cart

in the thick air of August

with two bucks in my pocket

I felt alive

I sold a painting to a man just released from prison

I sold to a couple who lived in a shelter with their child

I sold a work on paper for three dollars

and bought my girlfriend and me

hot dogs at Grey's Papaya on Broadway

she never looked happier

a wife of a plastic surgeon opened a briefcase

in her penthouse apartment dining room

on Columbus Circle containing eleven thousand cash

as payment for my six-foot canvas

I sold another work on paper to a lesbian Juilliard student

who kissed me on the lips as a thank you

I have sold in SoHo, Greenwich Village, the Upper West Side, Fifth Avenue

Union Square, Sixth Avenue, and St. Mark's Place

I have snuck into street fairs in Little Italy and festivals on Third Avenue

I sold a canvas in Cooper Square to a stripper for two-hundred bucks cash

I sold to a hunched old street jazz pianist

I have sold to cops and had my art confiscated by cops

I painted a large-scale portrait of a wealthy gay couple

for eight grand and the guys posed together naked

in my East Village storefront studio apartment

on a concrete city sidewalk I once made six hundred bucks in an hour

drawing pop art portraits of pedestrians on sketch pad paper

while getting high from inadvertently inhaling

the Pilot marker fumes

I have been commissioned to paint dogs, cats, and birds

I drew Johnathan Larson in a coffee shop on Avenue A

and he tried to convince me to do backdrops for

some sort of rock opera based on La Boheme

he was working on

and I was too stressed about my own rent

to even consider it

I regret that to this day

I sold to the actor who played Angel in Rent

and the actress who later played Maureen in Rent

I videotaped her singing for me

and I told her she would one day be a star

and now she has won a Tony Award

and played Elsa in Frozen

and I have lost the video

I have sold in temperatures of one hundred degrees

I have sold on New Year's Day in sub-zero weather

with a wind chill

I have made sales at midnight

in front of the now long gone downtown Virgin megastore

I have said hello to almost every striking young woman

who happened to walk by

I would invite them to sit next to my set up

in a director's chair

beautiful Indian, Latin, or Scandinavian women

and NYU students

all sat and talked with me

I would treat them to Starbucks lattes

I was stood-up by dozens of potential customers

as well as dozens of potential dates

I have been stood-up on Saturday nights,

on the Fourth of July, and on Saint Patrick's Day

I have stood waiting for love in Washington Square,

the South Street Seaport, and Grand Central Station

an inebriated man once stumbled and

collapsed on my table of paintings

I have seen my art blown away by the wind

into the traffic on the Manhattan streets

I have lost paintings under parked trucks

kind strangers have chased my art

blowing down the sidewalk

one canvas caught a gust and just missed striking

an elderly woman in the head

I have discarded paintings only to have them

stolen from the trash outside my building

my painting of John Lennon was stabbed

in a club called Octagon

the millionaire owner reimbursed

me with only three hundred dollars

I was politely but briskly escorted

out of the office of Paloma Picasso

with my two giant rejected portraits of her

that barely fit in the elevator

I later sold one of those painting for twelve grand cash

I have drawn millionaire and billionaire CEOs on the

Highlander Yacht of Malcolm Forbes

I painted his final portrait

I quoted a price and he raised me five grand

in nightclubs I have drawn instant celebrity portraits with markers on napkins

of Madonna, Mick Jagger, and Eddie Murphy

I have painted on a commission until nine A.M. in Ottawa Canada

with ten-grand cash stuffed in my socks

my hotel had no safe

one day I arrived on a street and sold everything for five hundred

and rolled my empty cart home to get more paintings

set up again and made five hundred more

I used to have a superstitious belief that if I saw a matinee

it would bring me luck selling later on in the afternoon

and it did

I have sold my art in living room parties, disco boats, bakeries, cafes,

The Palladium, Limelight, The World

and the Nirvana penthouse nightclub in Times Square

as well as at bars and an after hours club called Save the Robots

that didn't open until five A.M.

I have strapped paintings onto female jazz dancers because the club owner

forbade me from displaying them on the walls

and so I sold the paintings right off the dancers' backs

I have sold to gay men from Rome

rich trust fund teenage girls from Beverly Hills

psychiatrists, physical therapists, Ric Ocasek from The Cars, possible gangsters

from Queens and Brooklyn

I have exchanged my art for dental work, podiatry,

and two round trip tickets to Bermuda, one round trip ticket to Rio,

and a round trip to Sweden to see a girl I loved

and she still broke my heart

when she didn't want to come back to New York with me

I have exchanged art for dinners at Benihana

I have been featured on Network News, Cable TV, and Public Access channels

I have been chronically poor and periodically rich

I have seen my career reach peaks where millionaires

proposed champagne toasts to my talent

on luxury yachts on the Hudson River

and I have stooped so low that I paced a psych ward in soiled clothing

watching my whole life flash before me like a movie montage

while I was too paranoid to even take a shower

I have painted and sold my art for over thirty-five odd years

I have drawn or painted on boards, canvas, T-shirts,

and with my trusted jumbo Pilot marker I have temporarily tattooed

the bare breasts, backs, shoulders and thighs of top models

I have a painted twenty-foot mural in a high fashion show room

and was known for painting on the backs of jean jackets

or drawing on classroom chalk boards, sketch pads, fine table cloths

of 5 Star Bistros, and bald heads

I have drawn on the fog of taxi cab windows

while looking out at my time zip by

and I have used cheap foam brushes and expensive sable hair brushes

and only a clinical depression and a psychotic break halted my work

knocking me to the floor

but once I exorcised those inner demons

the art angels came back

to curse and bless me to continue

on my artistic journey evermore

Note for Note

When the snow
the sun and the sea
was like my
wind-blown hair
just another thing
out there within grasp
like the first gasp
of learning to ask
for what should
be a given
like a for goodness
namesake
no need to be stolen
because it is
waiting for you to take
advantage of the newness
the red white and blueness
me the prince
and she the princess
of darkness and lightness
and yes, this may all sound
merely musical
like Sir Lancelot
singing Camelot
feeling weak
while acting strong
you see I sold
my whole life
for a song



Empty Nest

You promised
that it would all
come full circle
for me
like a cast
or class reunion
and I would do
a victory lap
around the lap
of luxury
and you said
I would look
around to see
loved ones
surround me
dancing round
and round
like a marching band
not like this accusatory
Custer's last stand
because blame is
the only thing being
passed from hand to hand
and now nobody's buying
the family brand
and to think Yoko
didn't even break
up this band



Phantom of the Phantasm

From crystal clear
to out-of-focus
my vision is
mostly hocus-pocus
from my dream
of spotting my
perfect Pocahontas
in the New York
metropolis
to my over abundance
of inner reflection
sparkling in my iris
like guilty-pleasure
deflection
I am just overly
desirous
like a pre-histrionic
Tyrannosaurus
crushing
every beautiful thing
in this enchanted forest
a long-in-the-tooth
literary sorcerer's apprentice
who learned how
to begin but not
how to end
this overflowing
life and death
sentence



Story Time

Don't worry I won't
let go of everything
from the summer
grapes of Bacchus
to the winter storm watch
of a January love affair
or the warm hands
of a telling look
in fact I am
taking it all in
from the sights
and the in-the-round
sounds of modern
Shakespeare
written within
the daily dialect of
average, everyday
night owls who
hoot and holler
while drinking spirits
and shunning spirituality
in exchange for sensuality
what I am saying is
I see free verse
in the prose
of the universe
and I know there is
no reversal
because this is all
happening live
with no rehearsal
and this possibly
meaningless
structureless plot
is all we've got

Ivan Jenson is a fine artist, novelist and a popular contemporary American poet. Ivan’s poetry is widely published in the US, the UK and throughout Europe. Jenson has numerous novels and a collection of poems published. Ivan’s thriller novel, "The Murderess" is now available in kindle and hardcover on Amazon. His new thriller novel, “The Widow” will be released in March 2022.  www.IvanJenson.com