Tyranny of Art
Tonight I’m free. I didn’t die or write.
No all-nighter Delilah blinded me.
My eyes don’t burn like Satan’s grill. When light
rolls with the globe to blaze the cherry tree
and cause the moles and worms to underground,
I rest in dream. A slave of Morpheus, Hell,
I won’t be hanged at dawn for being found
out of uniform in a dim hotel.
Yet the shrewd roulette game of art once more
cons me. I scrawl verse in a leopard pit
when this beast hungers for his sleep. A whore
again of words, I slip into my clothes
and hit the street, selling my mind and wit
for tinkling song my body loves or loathes.
BIO
Mags ask for a 50-word bio/My confession reads/Born in Lewiston Maine city of gay Marsden Hartley/grand painter Like Marsden I get/lost in Paris Come back 5 years later after/Greece Andalusia London/Soldier in Korean War (stationed in France)/I like to write sonnets.
Note: Tyranny of Art was originally published in Life and Legends on June 12th 2014
