“At the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla” by Dan Grossman

Stacked panoramic images by Dan Grossman, taken with Samsung Galaxy S-9 camera

Buy Mindfucking Roundabouts of Carmel, Indiana by Dan Grossman

At the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla
After the work “Sometimes doing nothing is the best thing to do,’’ by Carlos Castro Arias

I saw your severed head, Junipero Serra, 
in a birdbath. It was in the exhibit 
“The Splinter in the Eye,” by Carlos Castro Arias.

The artist was giving a talk, and his patrons 
were eating it all up, even the paintings
“Eat my Flesh, Drink my Pee,”  and  “Sexy 

Motherfucker.” I’m confident, Serra, 
you would’ve sicked the inquisition 
on such artists, sticking splinters in their eyes 

or up their asses. You may have had little time 
for art  but you had plenty of time to practice 
self-chastisement, while you founded missions 

up and down the California Coast, 
from Baja to Monterrey.  Every time your cock
got hard after an errant glance at the flesh

of the Kumeyaay girls you tried to convert
you whipped yourself until you came.
That wasn’t supposed to happen, but the male 

libido doesn’t handle repression well. Just look 
at the stats, look at the 4% of priests raping 
the children in their care over the past 

1,000 years, But America wasn’t  supposed 
to happen either, not the way it did, 
with the crowds beheading your statue 

after George Floyd. Considering all 
the chaos that came in your wake, 
do you regret having come to these shores?