poemeleon

Regarding Child with a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park (Photograph: Diane Arbus, 1962), the boy in this Arbus photograph exposed the war about war (any war) I/we carry within. In the same way that Mohammed Ali could conscientiously object to being conscripted to kill, this blonde boy beamed in black and white the duality of innocence and violence in the human wiring that is anything but black and white. I had to write this poem and I had to rewrite this poem for two years after Diane Arbus made Central Park my backyard once, and still, in 1962.