On viewing the Guggenheim’s Kandinsky show
from top to bottom, his last to earliest piece, beginning
at the end and so proceeding to the beginning again,
along the declination of that tornadic rotunda I met
a man halfway down, though he was halfway up,
who engaged me in a solipsistic conversation
about, well, himself, circular notions really,
at the alcove covering ’22 to ’33, calling for
a moral revolution in his own convictions, whose depth
and range I tried to match, but lacking true intensity
drew back, or up the incline, as it were, spiralling
forward this time through the painter’s own transitions,
left the waffler steps behind in his state of recondition,
until, resolve in tailspin, stress levels spondeed, that is,
teeth set, trap shut, clapped tight, eyes wide, I spun,
trochoidal, and nodded assent, more a ploy to exit
past than listen, but the more that I agreed with him
the more he dug in his heels to argue contra my position.