Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE FIRST ARTISTS by NATHALIA CRANE

First Line: IN LAVA LANE WERE ARTISTS
Last Line: AND CHALKING UP BOTH SIDES.
Subject(s): ART & ARTISTS;

In Lava Lane were artists
Who swung the chalk with glee.
The pool proclaimed with circle,
The down-stroke was the tree.

On canvas of the caverns
With fundamental mirth
They outlawed Eva's girdle,
Drew Adam as at birth.

No background jammed a vision,
No border awed a soul,
They overran the pushpins
To draw the fishing pole.

They posed the lava bubbles,
The baby's unborn tooth,
Diameters were goaded
Until the chalk was truth.

The tints of wild contentment
Were ever in their sighs,
They fled not from the orgies
When mothers shut their eyes.

Those galleries no longer
Connive against the blue,
An angel mined the dugouts
Because they were too true.

And yet some sultry morning
May show where art still bides --
An urchin at a billboard
And chalking up both sides.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net