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The Artist’s Bane
The curse of recreation
You make a picture
One I’ve already captured
I breathed you in and gave it life
That I cannot breathe again
Without suffocating you
Should I attempt to stop the sun?
Kill today to own tomorrow?
It’s the curse of an artist
Inject venom into what we create
And tranquillise the beast
We bear the bite
And cherish the wound
Then you can hang the cadaver on your wall
We discard our progeny
To recreate
We don’t languish in graveyards
We produce new life
From rotting leaves
Not straining to stop the sun
By taking its likeness
Don’t kill the moment
Allow the sun to give it life
Then let it go, and wait
The sun does not grow old
Tomorrow has another for you
This might sound morbid but it’s not about death at all. It’s about the need to re-create rather than rehash what’s already been completed. The same subject can be sketched, painted or written about several times. But for a true artist, each work must have a life of it’s own, not one borrowed from the past.
