The Pavement Artist

1.

Andiamo!  Ho le ali. Andiamo!  
Let's go!  I have wings.  Let’s go!

The chalk is ingrained in the grooves of my skin, 
a rainbow of pastel dust muddied to iron ore, 
the core of me sludge now.  

I have drunk drudgery, 
through sluggish osmosis become 
a cartoon fool in the lap of God, destitute,
a prostitute who sold his soul 
for a mess of nickel and gold, 
a pimp who put a twinkle in the eye 
of too many virgin madonnas.

My knees are calcified, callous 
to this pleading pavement, these pennies 
not proper payment 
for such prostration.  

I have lived through 
too many winds and too many wars, 
my face a battlefield of random colouration - 
the pigment, sour and chapped, 
my mouth a tight slit
spitting jagged hesitation.

In the beginning I was love,
a conjurer of images 
which flowed
from passionate hand to jagged heart, 
which filled guttering holes 
and stilled the wandering mind.  

I was in my element,  
I was sublime.

But now, it’s more than can be endured: 
the chalks burn me to cold cinders 
and I am no longer inured 
to the savaging of time.

Andiamo!

 
2.

Last night dreams held me tight, 
my spirit was clutched 
in the horned fingers of Michaelangelo:  
I was chalk to his grim genius, 
my blood squeezed out 
in polychromatic pools 
which ebbed and flowed, shallow 
under the Vatican’s sibilant shadow; 
and there I gave birth
to a glorified
magnified
deified
Delphic Sybil.

In the luminescence of El Papa's eyes 
I was luscious to my creator God 
who, on his hands and knees, 
kissed the fisherman’s ring
until silver fissures began to sing
and all the rivers of the world ran black.

Then El Papa and his enteurage
were transformed into satanic beasts, 
pulling on fat greasy cocks, 
pulling until their loads 
were simultaneously shot, 
like manna from heaven, 
hot and acid, all over my face.

Andiamo! 
I have wings. 
Let’s go!  

Surely we can fly beyond this... 
this meagre scratching for shillings.


 
3.

Last night, 
in the shambles of our tired fucking, 
in the throes of extinction, 
I was overwhelmed -
nauseated by the clashing cacophony 
of your chalk skin 
rubbing against my chalk skin... 
the clutching of our copper fingers.  

For the love of God, 
for the love of love: 
there must surely be 
more to life 
than we can see.

Andiamo!  
My wings will sing for us. 
They will raise us above this scrabbling.  
Andiamo!  
Per amore di amore.