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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ARTIST, by BEN JACKSON
First Line: Death peered in a time or two
Last Line: Death ... My patron!
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The
First Line: Death peered in a time or two
Last Line: Death ... My patron!
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The
Death peered in a time or two
and leered at me.
He saw me smugly domiciled
in a house architecturally approved
by the best critics of destiny's apparatus.
Then, smiling pensively,
if with tolerant condescension,
he went his way.
Death chose to wait; Death held his breath
and winked at the serenity of my contemplations;
winked at my droll spiritual caricatures
so sternly modelled of biblical asbestos
in defiance of his scythe.
Death's sense of humor urged him to procrastinate
while I hung pictured convictions on the walls
of my studio.
I sense Death's padded feet again
and his gray smile.
I must submit my art once more
to the cold scrutiny of his black monocle.
The totality of my egoistic daubing!
Perhaps he will not look at it
but will glare at me and wither me
with blasting appraisal
and say that my pictures have painted me,
that my grotesque acceptability
outweighs the chill restraint
of Eternity's Connoisseur ...
and that I am his
to hang in the halls of perdition!
I hope I have pleased him ...
Death ... my Patron!
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