Black ink spills over valleys made of paper
To tattoo them each with liquid skyscrapers
That block out the sun at the wrong times of day
And bend all the rainbows into shades of gray
Which bounce off the roadways and street signs below
And into the graphite of rivers that flow
Between all the buildings in this monochrome scheme
Tracing outlines for a monotone dream

And against all odds, life evolved on this leaf
And unsuccessfully sought to confound the belief
That where lines were drawn with a pencil and pen;
And lives got written and rewritten again;
In a world that some artist had begun;
Illustrated, erased, redesigned and redone;
There could be no revision to defend their plain
paper cities from fires, or scissors, or rain

For if this man strikes but one clumsy match
And one spark is enough for a fire to catch
Then that fire will spread till the ink-men are dead
And the black, white, and gray are engulfed in red
And then the artist watch with undying shame
His cities go up in towers of flame
And it will be fire that scribbles the end
Of the life on the leaf that this artist penned

But if scissors cut this world into pieces
And the work of the artist rips and releases
The fragments of people that would litter the alleys
Of celluloid cities in celluloid valleys
That could not retain any shape or foundation
In the clapping of metal annihilation
Then each expectation this world didn't meet
Will lie in tatters at this artist's feet

But if this world is folded over in hand
And carried outside to a storm-riddled land
It will stand naked against the swords of the rain
And be reduced to a bleeding, lifeless stain
Of which the artist will be forced to dispose
(being a burden for pockets and clothes)
Then this genocide stripped of every rage
Should ruin the conscience as well as the page.

11/23/2009

Posted on 11/24/2009
Copyright © 2024 V. Blake