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