I am an artist   

   I shape a    mound    of words
Like a             pound            of clay
   And I           mould           them
         Into the shapes I feel

Or pick a pallet of paragraphs
And blendstrokebrush them
Into vivid pictures of my soul

I drop l
            e
              t
                t
                  e
                    r
                      s like beads on hemp, or silver or line
So I can wear them
As tokens of my imagination

I want to busk Poetry
Hawk my prose on a street corner
Get all dolled up
and show my collection in a fancy gallery
with toothpicked hors d'ouvres
and cheap red wine

I want the world to know,
I sweat, I cry, I bleed
Into every piece you read.
Technical reports, parenting articles,
half-assed poems scratched into journals in
Wee hours of a dream

This is my existence
My artistic expression.

Of course it's for sale
I'd hate to be a starving artist.

© 2007 Shelley Lawson