Kevin Ridgeway

HIGH ART 

I got lost with my mother 

& my brother in the halls 

of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

& we argued over everything 

that caught our six deadly, 

discerning eyes:

judgment day had come 

to Pablo Picasso,

Andy Warhol & Jackson Pollock, 

but we all loved Salvador Dali’s 

melting Crucifix.  

My brother teased me 

over my LSD past 

in the face of surrealism 

when he whispered 

“trippy, huh?” 

& stoned on Xanax,

I nodded in smiling

overgrown bearded 

wistful memory 

agreement of 

an earlier time 

when I discovered

another world 

beyond art 

beyond society 

beyond who we all were 

& where we came from 

& what we all thought 

& what we all felt 

about each other 

as I nodded off 

on the subway home 

& remembered 

who I used to think 

I wanted to be.

Kevin Ridgeway's latest books include "Invasion of the Shadow People" (Luchador Press) and "A Ludicrous Split 2" (w/ Gabriel Ricard, Back of the Class Press). His work has appeared in Hiram Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, Gargoyle Magazine, Chiron Review, Trailer Park Quarterly and Nerve Cowboy, among others. He lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.