Sympathy For a Starving Artist
Have I mentioned how difficult it is
Being an artist
At a kids’ fair
That’s so nice you’re
Incredible you should
Keep it up
They walk by and I
Make my living on
Sweet words and
Sorry eyes because
I’m good but
Nobody cares, nobody
Comes back or
Spares the money the kids
Don’t
Care
i.
Glassy eyes like
Smooth polished lake, like
Underwater forests, like
Crashing sea salt water taffy
He says there’s a place where
My green scaled my
Yellow eyed my
Angry thorned seasnake
Shimmers round, circling
Children laugh and
Children sit royal
Secure in Mr. Seasnake and his
Loyalty because his
Anger gives way, because
Waves crash and give way, because
I painted my heart
In his eyes
ii.
He asks if I’ve seen it
If I’ve seen the recreation
The ceiling of the high school
Where students paint aspirations on the walls that contain them
Where Michelangelo’s a brushstroke away
Where they laugh because they know
The masters never die and
They are the masters now and
Tear it down all you like but
Adam is born
Again and again
At my fingers or
Yours in your mind or
Mine, Well
I hadn’t seen
I’d looked but
Not really I tell you I won’t forget
And the day before it burned I saw
Honest conversation like it’s
Written in the sky and I swear
I’ll paint your goodbyes
I’ll be the
Aspirer
Master
Student, my
Michelangelo
iii.
Have I mentioned you yet
You’re that woman I
Hope I’ll become that woman
I want to be you’re that
Smile breaking the boredom you’re that
I don’t know what I’m doing, that
Don’t have a plan but
I know what makes me happy so
Give me it all
Copyright © Vella Taliare | Year Posted 2018
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