“The
Critic and the Lawyer but behold
The
baser side of literature and life.”
Byron,
Don Juan, X: 14: 1-2
Sincerity’s
no guarantee
Of
art—of poetry least of all.
Sincerity’s
what confessors hear,
It’s
what the nurse and medic see,
Or
worse. I sometimes feel
The
greatest sincerity’s what we read
On
restroom walls:
“I
want to . . .” “Call me . . .”
“Whoever
reads this is a queer . . .”
Call
it ignorance; call it rage,
The
major symptom of our age;
Call
it, if you will, sheer lust
Perverted
and fertilized by disgust,
It
shows the basest need
Constrained
by fear, and thus
It
is sincere, even when in part
Unconscious.
But . . . art?
Anonymous, they bare their need,
Evading responsibility
Through secrecy in public,
As, behind doors,
lawyers trick,
Yet
magnify the law:
“The
Law exists apart.”
“The
Law exacts awe.”
“Law
does not swerve.”
And, like
graffiti, like all means
Self-elevated
into ends,
The
law remains erect
Long
after those ends it was meant to serve
Are
not.
The law does not respect
The law does not respect
The
sticky issues of the human heart,
Which
usually turn out to be,
On
close examination, rather raw,
As in graffiti—
As in graffiti—
The
raw material, in fact, of art.
True
practitioners and those who know,
On
the other hand, elaborate from need,
But
know that need is not enough
Without
the skill to take the rough
And
change and mold, or make it flow,
Make stubborn forms or passing waves,
That
startle while they captivate,
Releasing
us as they enslave.
But
even so,
Like law and graffiti both,
Like law and graffiti both,
It’s a necessity—
I
mean art merely,
Not
sincerity.
It
helps us live with one another
And
with ourselves—if not like brothers,
At
least in a natural sort of order
While
we remain, oh so sincerely,
Selfish,
unloving, cowardly.
http:// nothingbuttalent. net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/toilet-graffiti01.jpg
Excellent
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