Bad News from Houston, All my Friends are Dying

The Art is in the Being

my friend - French Al - lives in Berlin

but is from France

he is an Artist.

I know this, because

that is what he says he is

an Artist

he calls Berlin home

for it is cheap (-er, than England and/or France) to exist

as an Artist there

there are whole ghettos of artists

existing in Neukölln and Kreutzberg

also, I remember a drawing he did once

back when we were both younger

at school, in England

and I watched him smoking a cigarette

contemplating a small semi-circle of

black bricks

he’d previously arranged on the floor

he smokes a lot of cigarettes and

when I asked him

what he does in Berlin

for work?

he said

Oh, we don’t work, man 

Al (along with several other French and English art immigrés)

has gotten together a beautiful studio space

also in Neukölln

where he smokes a lot of cigarettes and

I saw him contemplating the semi-circle of black bricks.

I told him I thought it a beautiful studio space

I know man, it frightens me

He replied

French Al is one of my favourite people

and definitely favourite artists

alive or dead

his vision is pure and true and

he is not full of shit

And I appreciate the fact that he is he

above all else.

(I wrote this poem shortly after staying with Al in Berlin some 6 odd years ago now. He fell off a roof and died the other day. The world's a poorer place for it. Rage on Al. x)