Thursday, 14 June 2012

The Artist

The artist at his cafe table sat
Morosely sucking coffee from his thumb;
His head was filled with other artists’ chat
And Mandeville his agent had not come.

Behind the square the day was setting fast
Whilst shadow like a plague spread all around,
A woman with a screaming child pushed past
And rain like bodies tumbled to the ground.

What now might stir his artificial mind?
What rage like Homer’s smoulder in his loins?
These days he never wrote before he’d dined,
Content to be a scavenger for coins.
Far off, the sea flung questions at the land
In language he would never understand.

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© October 1981