A Mother's Day poem

The artist

The artist never marries.
No kids to prod and poke.
Her hollow dog eats prime rib
as life drifts by like smoke.

Stumbling on perfect legs of clay,
She trails the anxious shepherd
high into hills above the city
where art and truth are severed.

She says this path is mine.
I must suffer, play, ruminate,
ignore your ocean eyes,
lest my words not propagate.

Golden child, he will not wait
For art for artists’ sake.
He lolls upon your lovely lap
and skips across the lake.

Thus I am the artist
you my finest pen.
Our greatest tale unfolds
each day anew again.

For Tiffany
Mother’s Day, 2009
Joe O’Connell