1. to the lost artists, the poets with bad teeth
to the lost artists, the poets with bad teeth, no matter how hard publishers scout for talent, they will never find the manuscripts of shame hidden in the desk drawers, or the songs never sung & never written, notes trapped in the tank of the lungs, they will not find the beautiful paintings that have not been done by the poor, who couldn't afford the equipment, & who didn't have the wisdom or energy to follow their dreams into poverty, to lost creativity, to warehouses & shops full of brushes, clays & fine papers, & to those outside looking in, those poor poor artists, like the actor who couldn't afford the tuition, but who had the natural talent, he is rolling down the huge slope of a grassy hill, & at each turn a new character spills out the words, the fragments of dialogue that could have been staged, to the actor who never made it into social security to put his dole form in, who instead filled his afternoon with lonely scripts, for the audience of birds & insects, & who thought his art pure to compensate, yet i have only imagined him doing this on his own, i didn't see him but i know he exists out there as my friend, because artists love other artists, & i have tried to fill my heart with him, & i have called out to those hills he may have been rolling down, 'create your brilliant art, you are not alone', but i can barely afford to feed myself, it is a tremendous loss, the art of shame that is never found, to the artists working as machine operators & dishwashers, & those dusty academics, & those tired old teachers, & to those idealistic curators who brush the dust from the ruins, who begin the long excavations, through the layers of a society that has buried its artists |
