John Hertzberg.
Carousel Steeds.1992.
Mixed Media Collage, 30" x 40". $1200.

Arms and legs spinning
Like hands on a Universal Clock
The Man In The Iron Mask revealed
Asking rhetorical questions
Having just missed the brass ring again
Carosel Steeds flying overhead
At an incredible speed
Wordman lies beneath their screaming teeth
Like an alphabet scattered on the floor
Buffalo Bill lies trapped inside
Another brass ring falling
Trying to catch a hummingbird
Who knows that he is next
Yvette just stares from behind the ring
Knowing it's not time
Profiles of brutality floating
Beneath coral and pink
Society sometimes forgetting
Where lines of morality lay
Einstein tries his best
To explain his lastest theory
While floating like a slot machine image
In the vortex of changing reality
Searching the black and white memories
Left behind on the Rosetta Stone
Showing through spherical openings
In the pyramid of time
Questions of conscience
Remembering the Bridge of Mystery
And black leather boots
Sitting in reverse
In silver stirrups bouncing
Against the sides of a black stallion
Unaware of the pounding drums
Or the report of military guns
Numbers floating in relief
Maybe explaining meanings
Maybe just laying there
Holding on to time
Choices at the end of fingertips
The final walk to a little green room
No time for tears then
It's all over
No retreat
Just surrender
Images of the not-so-lucky
Hauntingly appear
From behind a lavender veneer
The King of Diamonds hovers near
What remains of Melgar Street
Lying beneath the wheel of fortune
Fair Juliet appears in the East
Her slender fingers caressing
A favorite pet staring
Van Gogh sees it all from the North
His gaze filtered in a lavender haze
The Man in the Iron Mask hidden
Beneath brush strokes of Toulouse-Lautrec
Gone in search of Jane Avril
He's heard she might be dancing
At the Moulin Rouge
The Carosel Steeds arrive in a lather
Pulling Cinderella's carriage
Hauntingly empty
And in need of slipper
The Prince not quite sure
Just where he's supposed to be