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On the news at 2 am politicians speak
of nuclear mass destruction while bohemians
set the stage for a festival
taking a stand against the separation
between Life and Art
She shakes hands with suddenly new friends
all at once alive late night fuel
for active young minds
History her dance partner claims
is a drunk repeating his rant over and over again
On this day of pregnant pause she decides
to be normal
to visit the dentist to shop for food
she wants no one to be hungry
At the supermarket
after the medication has worn off
and the strength of her jaw returned
she faces the store clerk’s register which reads:
TENDER VALIDATION
she repeats this three times
and tells the clerk
It’s what everybody needs
When the infamous Sky appears in his trusty truck
to balance the sound before the show
she sits outside with a Moroccan
getting a French lesson
I play drums he says
and Sky, too not art
no, not art it’s what we do
So when the news radio interferes with a threat
the Brink of War
a schoolyard simulation
prayer request
and in the backdrop
Bob Marley parts her lips with Stir it Up
everyone sits on the floor
sharing burritos
from tender validated midnight clerks
and just wants to sleep
and just wants to dream of a world
where there is no definition
for art it’s simply
what we turn into
©2002, Danika Dinsmore
Danika is a performance poet, co-founder/former director of Northwest SPokenword LAB (SPLAB) in Auburn, Washington, facilitator of a collaborative experimental writing project, 3:15 Experiment. She also served a stint as executive director of Eleventh Hour Productions / Seattle Poetry Festival and was our Pacific Northwest Museletter correspondent in 2001 and 2002.
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