Edward Hopper and the American Dream (part 2)

The poems in part 1 (below) were written in situ at the Western Motel Exhibition in Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, and are exclusively about Edward Hopper.
The Edward Hopper exhibition terminates on 15th. February 2009. On display are paintings and etchings by Hopper, but also works and installations from Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Tim Eitel, David Claerbout, Thomas Demand and several others. The exhibition's introductory leaflet tells that Alfred Hitchcock's Bates Motel in the classic Psycho was inspired by Hopper's work.
The following poems are also in situ works. They attempt to bring some of the exhibition's other threads and themes together.

something is gestating here

something timeless
may appear
something often does...

by slow rivers and broken boatyards
on the city's wrong tracks side
the bards and artists drawl and trawl
and know we are unsentimental
- realists all

know lives are lived
behind closed doors
and inward face away
from light
where couples brood
and breed

morning and faded paint
oblivious to the reverie
we find, or seek to find,
in the smokestack town
in the belching raw
and boisterous
crowds
on the lonely subway trains
some hideous beauty
to address
in words and paints


broken picket fences

make good neighbours
when budweiser flows
at the nite life lounge
where the broken down
litter the bar-room
and the buick rusts
at rest
having failed
the smog check
down at king's
its hood agape
in the palm tree shadow
it's owner gone
for coffee
and a
marlboro cigarette