DOCTORAL THESIS

You’re not really interested either

you’re reading this or worse

       I am

and when it’s over hopefully

we’ll both forget.

There only ever were

four poems one

       about

love one about

       lost love

your father – mother – your youth

one about flowers

trees – hills – dales

and god-damned pretty little birds;

one about

       them all the one

about the poet.

Cave wall hand tracing

       self-portraits in sable or

ear-bandage

dissolved in abstract expressions

filtered through post-modern un-irony

sprayed again at last

       on walls in darkness;

painters over and

       over paint themselves

ever shifting

mood style and form.

Musicians have played

the same four songs

       since

learning to hit

a log with a stick.

All artists are thieves;

if you meet one who isn’t he is

also a liar.