Art & World (Postscript Poems)
Drawn from the letters of the late Canadian artist Jack Siegel, with permission of his friends Mary & Richard Keshen
Sean Howard
i
Park bench –
God
Alone…
*
‘Jack’ – it’s the being
I’m frightened of!
*
The strange patience
Of light
*
The strokes I suffer
Every day
*
Exhausted –
With the world
Every step…
ii
Art – suddenly,
The difficult
Going…
*
Cruel –
Faces
Whittled
*
Mob –
Self-
Portrait
*
All these years, the
Single soul…
*
The world
I sometimes see
After work
iii
‘Loner’? –
Society
For the blind!
*
Boxes &
Boxes of
People
*
(Though I wanted to laugh
With those broken…)
*
Crayons –
Jack in
The box
*
The life
Time in
Line…
iv
Toronto –
Fertile
Ground?
*
‘Rose
Dale’ – the
Artist asks,
Where?
*
Art? My
Present
Condition
*
(Not pregnant, but
Always expecting!)
*
Exhausting –
My friends sitting
For me while I talk
v
The artist trying
To control the mob…
*
Postwar –
The dead
Quiet?
*
(Seeing what
I mean?)
*
Until, my eyes
Fed up with light…
*
Abandoned –
The world on
My doorstep
vi
The only child
I chose to be
*
Betrayed –
The boy tearing
The teddy…
*
‘With these hands’ –
The crayon
Self
*
Death taking
Shape from me
*
& God is being
Sold every day
Sean Howard is the author of Local Calls (Cape Breton University Press, 2009) and Incitements (Gaspereau Press, 2011). His poetry has been published in numerous Canadian and international magazines, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and anthologized in The Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope Books, 2011 & forthcoming).
