Poem : The Artist’s Hand

Writing on trains is more than scribbles of names
A canvas of steel rolling with artwork for the masses to see
To ponder
To wonder
To gawk
To judge on their definition of art
It depends on who’s in the audience I suppose
Messages conveyed from the mind of the artist
It’s art in its most primitive state
A connection with the people bridging all the way back to our ancestors
Painting cave walls with cold black ash from a spent fire
With bright berries crushed into sticky red liquid
Today the artist has traded in the cave wall for the canvas of buildings
For the spray can, shaken with the marble inside
A muddy click clank is the sound it makes through the thick cool paint
Brick walls of fired red clay dressed with graffiti
Exaggerated faces painted to look out on the city
To look through the smog of everyday people
To bring calm to the madness
The artist has designed them with each spray of their can
With each stroke of their brush
With each scratch of their pen
The artist is communicating with you in the simplest form
With the simplest of tools, their hands, their expression
Show their connection with the world in which they live
It’s an art without any rules, without any boundaries
Lines you can color outside of
The artist's hand is the one in control
　


Published at Indigo Rising Magazine April 27 / 2011