Fat 'n Happy the Rooster Blah, Blah, Blah

Just Another Jim

Poetry



A Visit to the Walker Museum of Modern Art

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Poem Posted February 12, 2008 by James E. Nelson

The Walker Museum of Modern Art, now renamed the Walker Art Center, is located in Minneapolis and is one of the nation’s preeminent contemporary art museums. This poem was written in 2004, although the actual family trip to the Walker took place in the late 90s or 2000. It is posted now in conjunction with the essay No Endings for Long Movies. I never posted the poem on the JAJ site because without explanation it merely sounds like an out of touch complainer who doesn’t understand modern art. Well, you're correct, I don't understand it, but my concern goes far deeper than that, which is the point of the essay. The essay and poem go hand in hand.

+ + + + + + +

A VISIT TO THE WALKER MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

Minneapolis, Minnesota


Afterward we sat

in the arboretum

so well-ordered, hopeful, alive


So different than that

which refused to be art

which littered the gallery


So much jetsam

scattered like a final hopeless cry

across the waters


So much flotsam

bobbing in the sea of

meaninglessness


But here

in the well-ordered arboretum

there was anchorage


Hopelessness was but

a figment of our disheartened imaginations

a memory which trifled


With this

which must be

reality