Vocal Reading: https://voca.ro/1bEadrW49IWu
staring at the smudges on the Erased De Kooning
stepping closer and stepping back
my feet squeak on the Pergo wood floor,
I feel nothing.
people mull about
looking at the contemporary art
engaged in quiet conversations.
I lose myself in the nothingness of the De Kooning
hung on an otherwise blank wall
at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
lost in reverie, my mind wanders to just outside Jerusalem
standing on future sacred ground; I look up
at the cross that holds Jesus, palms and feet
nailed into the firm grip of the cypress
my eyes scan the bellowing crowd
anguish, pain and tears
flood outside the city walls--
I wonder to myself if Rauschenberg felt such emotion too.
I tilt my head slightly to the left,
examining the erasure marks.
doing the math, I surmise
if Kennedy had done the same
he would have evaded the bite
of the bullet in Dealey Plaza; now, I stand on a grassy knoll
overwhelmed with emotion, looking around,
a city weeps; a country mourns.
I consider the moment,
Rauschenberg frantically, vehemently
erasing De Kooning's drawing,
a mad scramble like at the Las Vegas Village
Stephen Craig Paddock scattershot into a crowd
people dropping or diving to the ground,
De Kooning's drawing ripped to pieces,
torn like a country lost to politics (insanity).
that didn't happen.
Rauschenberg was not frantic; he was
calculating, carefully
deconstructing the ideas of De Kooning.
I notice a janitor wheeling a mop bucket
following a young woman, who stops,
points to the floor.
I don't see anything from where I sit,
but then again, do any of us really see the whole picture?
I can make out parts of the painting there,
looks like the American flag, a fireman kneeling.
the woman looks distraught;
maybe the moment has become too much for her too.
yeah, Rauschenberg, he took his time,
knew what he was doing, taking
apart the hard work of another man is a tedious job.
standing, again I approach the nothingness
up close, I see the remnants,
flecks of what had existed
before De Kooning gave his express permission
to Rauschenberg to alter his picture forever,
but I detect no sense of what existed before.
that night in the Canopy by Hilton overlooking San Francisco
I watch the news, Tucker Carlson,
espouses opinions about the insurrection of January 6th,
block eraser in hand, carefully he rubs out
the works of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin--
without their permission.
people climb walls, break windows, storm the Capitol,
each given an eraser, by Trump, by Carlson
no emotion, just cold calculation.
I turn the T.V. off.
I just can't put my John Hancock on that.
it is overcast, mid-November, 1863
in a Pennsylvania field near the town of Gettysburg
weary and worn but buoyed
Lincoln addresses the gathering crowd,
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers
brought forth on this continent a new nation,
conceived in Liberty, and dedicated
to the proposition that all men are created equal."
The emotion of the crowd is palpable.
I admire the resolve to sacrifice self for ideals.
"Now, we are engaged in a great civil war,
testing whether that nation
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated,
can long endure. We are met
on a great battle-field of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field,
as a final resting place for those
who here gave their lives that that nation
might live."
I stand in awe, like all the others, and applaud.
in a muddy trench, 1918, north of Lille, France,
I sit talking to Corporal Martin
his back rests against the front side of the ditch
his rifle between his legs rests against his chest.
he has a small American flag patch in one hand;
a picture of a beautiful girl in the other.
he kisses the picture putting it into his breast pocket,
salutes the flag and does the same,
clutching his gun, he jumps out and over the berm.
a beautiful drawing erased
just a blank white slate, no emotion.
bullets ricochet off the landing craft, June 6, 1944,
Colonel Rogers screams, “Disembark!”
men that are boys, boys dressed as men
splash into the waist-high Atlantic at Omaha Beach
screams fill the air, some from determination,
others from the undertow of barbed wire waves tearing skin,
still others from German machine gun rounds.
in waves, they wade through the blood
crashing upon the shore
dodging the dead, running for the safety
at the base of the cliffs, where bravery climbs the grim
face of freedom
endangered,
no one will remember what has been erased.
I turn the T.V. back on, the images boggle,
people, Americans, scaling walls of the United States Capitol
assaulting democracy.
I am sitting in 8th grade social studies class,
Mr. Carlson, who looks a bit like Ol' Abe,
explains the sacrifices, people,
families have made to fight for my freedom.
I hide the emotion, choked up
with American pride.
January 6, 2021, I watch as President Trump speaks,
"Today, we see a very important event, though,
because right over there, right there,
we see the event that's going to take
place, and I'm going to be watching
because history is going to be made.
we're going to see whether or not
we have great and courageous
leaders or whether or not we
have leaders that should be
ashamed of themselves throughout history,
throughout eternity. They'll be ashamed.
and you know what? If they do the wrong thing,
we should never, ever forget that they did.
never forget."
history can never be erased.
Freedom can never be erased!
--
by Scott Sharpe
Scott Sharpe has a B.A. in Literature and English with an emphasis in creative writing from California State University San Bernardino. Sharpe has been an English teacher for 21 years, and enjoys reading and teaching others the power of language. A perfect day starts with writing, has teaching sandwiched in the middle and ends reading or writing.