NEWSPOEM 10 APRIL 1996 LEGS SEVER BODY TO ESCAPE FROM TRAP

I had just finished a month long ordeal.

I had just painted a meticulous copy of Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait.

Something about the painting still did not resonate properly.

Perhaps it was too resonant.

I left the cabin and walked outside checking the treetops for smoke.

Lately there has been a rash of fires started by loggers

to burn down the forest in order to get the protestors out.

More and more people, homeless, jobless, ineligible for government aid,

had taken to living in the trees.

I had an AM radio and was searching the static for a news report.

I heard a news commentator say that, in addition to starting fires,

loggers had taken to leaving bear traps.

Snap.

Having hacked off my legs and tourniqueted them with strips of my ranger jacket,

I now lie sprawled beneath my easel on hold.

Finally someone picks up the phone and a voice crackles through the receiver:

“Yeah, Oregon: You’re on the air.”

“[cough] Yeah… I just wanted to propose [cough] a solution to prison overcrowding…”