ThE ArtisT 

And when the artist soared into the void,

defying gravity

airborne lunar traveler

gesticulating arms

signing the sky

head first out of a Paris garret,

a camera captured

this yodan judo master Zen conceptualist

landing in the puddled street below,

and hours later:

“Man Flies”

made Le Monde’s Sunday morning headlines.

And when Rotraut suggested a weekend in Nice,

the artist tied canvases to their Citroën roof

“to reach the far side of the infinite”, 

thus birthing several anthropometries

speeding along 70 miles an hour,

primary colors and factory soot layer upon layer

splattered and variegated in the morning rain,

becoming Klein's environmental outré performances:

 Mondo Cane gorilla theatre. 

And when the artist painted with fire 

launching flames harnessing life’s ultimate creative force,

his torch burning and liquefying pigments on canvas,

flamethrower in hands with Parisian firefighters poised,

ultramarine colors migrating 

as the bubbling oils textualized,

Klein dressed in beret and tuxedo:

this Prometheus spawned life

this prankster who laughed at the infinite, the undefinable, and the absolute:

once and for all, 

Monsieur Klein singlehandedly

lampooned all remaining precepts of art.   

June 26, 2019