A BANANA, A WANNABE OLIGARCH, AND A CONCEPT WALK INTO A BAR

by Tom Lagasse

A Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur has followed through on his promise to eat the banana from a $6.2m (£4.9m) artwork he bought last week. Justin Sun outbid six others to claim Maurizio Cattelan's infamous 2019 work Comedian - a banana duct-taped to a wall - at Sotheby's auction house in New York. He ate the fruit during a news conference in Hong Kong where he used the moment to draw parallels between the artwork and cryptocurrency. The banana is regularly replaced before exhibitions, with Mr Sun buying the right to display the installation along with a guide on how to replace the fruit. —BBC, November 29, 2024

The banana would have eventually rotted
like all organic things do.  He untaped it, 
unpeeled it and ate it because he owned it.  
Of course, the banana and tape were symbols 
for the concept behind the work of art, 
the way crypto is a concept for money.  
He could have stopped on his way to the auction 
and purchased one at the bodega for half a dollar 
and not six point two mil. With the excess, 
he could have fed a school district or a senior 
center.  He probably could have purchased 
a banana plantation and eaten one every day 
for life. It was never about hunger, the way
a cigar is not always a cigar. The idea was bought 
on behalf of capitalism, its ravenous appetite 
for eating everything in its path and repackaging it, 
before selling it to a hungry public and convincing them 
there is no climate crisis; Ukraine caused its own 
invasion; or the insurrection never was an attempt 
to overthrow democracy. It is no joke   
an oligarch in-waiting ate the banana from “Comedian.” 
For the wealthy, the hoi polloi is always the butt   
of the joke. The laughter comes at our expense. 

Tom Lagasse’s poetry has appeared in Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal, The Silver Birch Press poetry series, Freshwater Literary Journal, The Eunoia Review, and in numerous anthologies. He was a 2024 Artist in Residence at the Edwin Way Teale House at Trail Wood. He lives in Bristol, CT. 

DIY FACEMASKS

by Lois Marie Harrod

            for digital spoken-word readings

You can do it with a bandanna.

You can do it with a folded bandanna
and a rubberband.

You can do it with a folded bandanna
and a rubberband or two,
It won’t protect you
but you can do it with a bandanna.

You can do it with a folded bandanna
and a rubberband and a coffee filter—
we prefer unused to used.
It won’t protect you
but you can do it with a bandanna.

You can do it with a folded bandanna
and a rubberband and a furnace filter
if your furnace filter is not too dirty.
Cut into pieces.
If you don’t have scissors, use a knife,
we prefer clean to unclean.
You can do it with a bandanna.

You can do it with an old t-shirt.
You can do it with a bra cup.
You can do it with a pair of jockey shorts
just pull them over your head
and peer through the leg holes--
again we prefer unused to used.

You can do it with half a grapefruit
You can do it with paper towels.

If you can find it,
you can do it with toilet paper.
Wrap a roll of toilet paper around your head.
Punch out eyeholes, but be careful of your eyes.
Better, put a pillow case over your head
after poking out eyeholes with a dirty screwdriver.

You can even do it with a banana
or at least the banana skins
and a little gorilla glue--
we don’t advise it, it won’t protect,
but you’ll feel better if you do.

Lois Marie Harrod’s latest collection Woman was published by Blue Lyra in February 2020. Her Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 from Five Oaks; her chapbook And She Took the Heart appeared in January 2016; Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press) and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013. A Dodge poet, she is published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3. She teaches at the Evergreen Forum in Princeton and at The College of New Jersey.