The Abstract of Confusion

 

What is an artist?

Who is an artist and who is not??

Perhaps we all be artists painting

The canvas, recording speech and words

And music,

     Maybe, the artist is the round

Peg in the square hole,

Or the square peg for the round

Hole and I’m just passing time,

Chasing events that signify only

Disruptive lives of insecurity,

Maybe, if I pay Equity,

I become the artist that perhaps

I have no talent for but,

The meandering of inconsequential

Is lost as again I remain steadfast in my

Approach to who is, and who

Is forgotten within the ramblings

And tones – colour tones, of thought.

 

I am an artist I declare but then

So are you, if only you knew the talent

Laying dormant that you’ve not

Had time - explore,

But within I; I do not shout I belong

I do not shout for the crowd to sit

Amongst and talk in wonderful

Narrative and dialogue and once,

I spoke in tongues of only discord

For I can never find the unity I yearn for.

 

     We are all artists,

Each and every-one perceives

The difference between us all

Not realising how close the DNA,

Except, except

     Whereas many can find themselves

As rounds upon a board of squares,

I find the board itself, no matter

On whose intent they claim they know

Whom they are; muddled in confusion

As they are placed each upon one

Whole square,

And it’s not the failings of

Laying claim to castle or abode

Of perfect symmetry,

(Symmetry repeated just

To reaffirm their place),

The trouble with I within

My labyrinth of mind, is

That although I know the board

Well, I know the many pieces

The many moves and ways

And textures and brush strokes

Of each an individual;

It’s two dimensional philosophy!

And there I yearn upon the sky,

And looking up I recognise,

This board is not my place despite

The possibility of artist -

The canvas I could paint or the moves

Within a crowd of millions – I could make,

And there I know,

It’s in knowing one’s place and here

Before the canvas, before the plain

Old speech recorder or before

Obligatory moves about to be made,

I find myself a stranger in everybody’s eyes,

And though I could make the move,

Paint the canvas,

Record the speech,  

Tickle the page with words

Lost and found,

I just know deep within myself;

None of it,

None of all conventions

We try determine as our place,

None of all the clichés of a clique

None of all they proclaim to know -

None of all this fallacy,

Is my home within this universe of space;

So I idle by like an engine ticking over

Before the place I know becomes

The greeting I have wanted,

And listening to the many

And adding my own cacophony of noise

I realize, that maybe,

We are all before the board,

Before the canvas and the page;-

Just the same, just the same,

Just the same, it’s just that,

The many seem to act

Better and with conviction,

Than the few who

Go desperately and quietly,

Insane.

 

Michael J Waite 2^nd January 2012.