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Passing Time (stretching unused prose muscles)
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Passing Time (stretching unused prose muscles) |
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wayoutwalt Member Elite
since 1999-06-22
Posts 4870TEXAS (it's all big) 
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At five years old I sold my first poem. It was an abstract work of art consisting of the single line: “hi guy fly bye dry”. It was hazy enough and carried just the right price tag to get an immediate buyer’s attention: my mother. She was my first employer. I wrote her poems when she needed them mainly to be sung at some important event maybe a family reunion or some other social where my talent could be appreciated. Soon my artistic flower began to blossom and I was venturing into the painter’s realm. Receiving a nickel for one line of poetry was indeed a gratifying experience but I needed more income for my ever-increasing mad money expenditures. Crayons and markers in hand, I practiced diligently my new trade. Do you know that you can get a dime from a passerby if you cry? Tears are all it takes. I learned how to draw houses and upside down birds. Upside down because it was my signature ability to express them just so, in flight, as the letter “W” because then they would have their wings pointing up, and this would prod the viewer into a subtle awareness that this piece of paper plate art was aimed for their enjoyment and not to free them from the simple fact that if any item from my grandparents flea market tables were purchased then the artwork would be theirs with no charge attached. Paper plate artwork didn’t illicit anything but sympathy and the occasional clink of a dime into my open mason jar. I knew what I had to do. “Oh, Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz…” I made a few dollars that day. I had bought a beat up violin case at the flea market and was currently outside my Aunt’s “Mom and Pop Donut” shop singing the blues. It’s all I knew, you know growing up in a family of oddballs. The blues, poetry and drawing to please the viewer, not myself – that’s what I truly enjoyed. How silly is it that an upside down bird should sing the blues, a line of poetry should still be remembered in a long dead mother’s heart, or a paper plate work of art should not be thrown away after all these long and withered years by some little old lady who never had the heart to rid herself of anything she could help. Near her bed was a case for a violin, an original rendering of her dead son’s first poem and an unused antique Underwood typewriter. She had saved the last to type his ending. [This message has been edited by wayoutwalt (05-15-2002 01:09 AM).] |
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| © Copyright 2002 Walt Burns - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
"The blues, poetry and drawing to please the viewer, not myself – that’s what I truly enjoyed." A true artist is just that, a perfectionist in giving of him or herself, in some medium, so that someone might stop, stare, feel, and sing back by voice, eye, or just a touch to the sleeve... such is the artist who touches another... [This message has been edited by Sunshine (05-15-2002 01:29 PM).] |
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Kethry Member Rara Avis
since 2000-07-29
Posts 9082Victoria Australia |
Walt, even your prose is art. Keth Here in the midst of my lonely abyss, a single joy I find...your presence in my mind. Unknown |
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JamesMichael Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336Kapolei, Hawaii, USA |
Very nice Walt...James |
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