The Estate of Ideas, by Kurt Cole Eidsvig

Short Circuit, by Robert Rauschenberg (USA), 1955.

The Estate of Ideas
(after Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends at the MoMA, on until September 17)

1.
Clean out the attic and the garage and find obsessions
with accumulation, our historical romance novels called
Collecting and Discarding. Rip the pages, erase, and smear 
ink black palm presses and fingertip licks on the places 
we clothe and disrobe from. There is never enough; there 
is always too much. If Manet reflected the trappings 

of modern society and Rothko trembled in the reverb 
shell-shock of post-war disillusionment, Rauschenberg 
is unique in his connection to consumerism and postmodern 
culture. He is environmentalist, idea man, repurposed social 
media star, and collector all in one. This week on American 
Hoarders, we inhale the stink of trash heaps and exhale 
sequined spray paint like cologne or perfume on the shores 
of any ocean you can’t swim beneath or live near.  

2.
The problems with accumulation are everywhere. Even trying 
to erase a masterpiece is erased from this collection. Footprints, 
like the prayer in your preacher landlord’s dense rock garden 
out in front of a pink house renovated from a disco. This is before 
Jeff Koons drives cars out there in suburbia and finds reflecting balls 
of inspiration. The prayer of heel-toe prints in sand is a reminder 
to the garbage men on Wednesdays to please take our worries 
away. They’re hell on our sciatica. God used to deliver things 
way back then. Now we just hope the universe comes and takes 
them all away.  

3. 
What's embedded beneath the relationship of things? 

4.
The untitled double Rauschenberg recalls exposed 
blue point paper. We only waited 1,000 years to circle back 
to hieroglyphics. Just ask your next social network 
connection to get creative with emojis. They’re photos 

of drawings someone else created with no one particular 
in mind (with everyone they ever loved in mind). Jasper Johns 
is here. And there’s Cy rolling in the hay. No one escapes 
the memory of negatives. A yard sale means next year’s 
millionaires found a shoebox packed with discards.

5.
Mother of God! A road map that blotted out the sun? 
The shadows alone would reassemble armageddon. 
Against this backdrop of backgrips and spine bumps 
collapsing after everything is over, the lily white secrets 
we didn't keep are misremembered. Jasper and I 
swapped Ideas until no one could think of the word 
for “again.” 

You can appreciate the lovers you stole from 
and still move toward something else 

6.
Every road trip you ever took was predicted 
by Bob’s tire print-- a painting of America 
retracing Jackson Pollock’s footfalls. Empty 
the dumpsters of shards from glasses, the booze 
bottles and perfume atomizers cast down 
in frustration, and suffering is in the past. 

We’ve all heard of tongues and inhales,
last drops and stale fabric scents, but who 
can handle the blood and neglect and empty 
graves required to mix in with scattered 
telephone wires to create an impermanent 
crucifiction with everything you need to look at 
on your newsfeed today? 
    
7.
The pressing desire, or Pollock throwing streams 
of paint against the landscape. And then Bob 
pressing against the sacred skin of black 
in a symphony of junk cars

8. 
One Christmas my mother begged 
for a framed print of Klimt without 
a mistress. We remember his love;
forget his soaked-through infidelities. 

The air conditioner repair service 
didn’t perform preventative maintenance 
this year and in the basement there are 
sodden lovers turned on their side 

and swimming. That same print: 
An untitled gold painting warped 
in its wooden frame. My stepfather’s 
Illusions after he swore off drinking. 

Find the Poland Springs water bottles 
scattered inside his upstairs studio 
repurposed into thin plastic vodka 
livers. He sipped and lied until the day 

he broke and lay there-- his variations 
on a theme by Gustav at the bottom 
of the landing. He left a clump of blood 
and hair. The helicopter delivered rotor

surges that the fan ducts and air registers 
seeped and swelled for before the hospital 
and the morgue. We weep at breaking 
and contain keepsakes of art history 

in dusty storage down deep at the lowest 
part of throat and stomach and silence. 
A recycle bin is the contemporary portrait 
of everyone you meet.   

9.
Short Circuit and the words predict Basquiat-- 
more Bob as sideshow fortune teller at the edges 
of a ghost town. Short Circuit, as flags and dots 
and rotting photos of Americans we hold car sales 
to commemorate. For the commercial breaks, 

don't decorate a dance, make something we can 
dance through, like curtains disguised at sheets 
flipped and swooped on top of a bed the two of us 
lurk and creep near. Every mattress we hang 
on walls is part warning and part testimony 

in an excruciating rape trial. Exhibit A should explain 
Degas to jurors, looming madness from retelling 
the stories of those around you, like with Interior 
from 1868 and 1869. In a mirror, which every 
painting and collage evolves to, the parentheticals 

switch to bold and disfigured exteriors. Watch out 
for your record collection: Are you the needles now, 
an absentminded melody you hum and measure 
breaths to, or the music circle twists contain?    

10.
Everywhere there are subtle reminiscences 
about the power of Jasper's dreams of flags 

11.
And the bird held the pillow 
like what's heavier, a pound of retreat, 
an ounce of prevention, or the regret 
of feathers after nightmares? 

There are noises we tie to nooses 
in canyons, and only Bob projects movies 
on the floor so the docents won't let you 
step in, or on, and through to the next thing 

and the next thing after. Films share 
sheens of floorboards and they mouth 
soundlessly, Remember? Don’t go. 
Please don’t ever forget me.  

12.
There's a fire bell in the middle 
in warning of the emergencies 
we neglect and ignore. Everything 
Bob stole and reflected on later-- 
the street signs and debris-- ask 
and beg forgiveness. But can you 
steal something that has already been 
abandoned? How about the lovers 
you haven’t left yet? Shore yourself 
up at the next exit sign and be careful 
to verify you’re no longer following 
people you don’t believe in 
collecting anymore. 

Kurt Cole Eidsvig
​
Kurt Cole Eidsvig been published in journals like Slipstream, Hanging Loose, Borderlands, Main Street Rag and The Southeast Review. A former featured columnist for Big Red and Shiny, his work has earned awards from the Warhol Foundation / Creative Capital, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the South Boston Literary Gazette, and The University of Montana. A visual artist as well as a poet, Kurt has taught courses in Writing, Art, and Art History at UMASS Boston, The University of Montana, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. He maintains a website at www.EidsvigArt.com.