On Becoming an Artist

The painter breathes through shattered glass,

changing a tire on a car that is moving,

he said.

The writer asks for blood when there is none left in the bank.

The dancer falls in love with a motorcycle-riding, Che Guevara Buddhist,

a mystic prince whose bag is empty

except for betrayal, debt, and loss.

Forests burning, a hole in the sky, polar bears adrift,

pangolins hunted down, their scales ground into dust -

Yes, Johnny needs a supernatural potion,

a placebo to ignite his

Lust

You,

Unbreechable,

the patterns of your life maintained -

on the couch,

in the same worn spot -

endlessly watching newsreel on CNN.

Pretending to read.

Could you not taste the sound of Beethoven

without a book to teach you how?

Tell me, father,

who is looking for freedom now?

~ Jada Griffin

Three Friends of Mabel Dodge Luhan

“What is needed is more, more and always more consciousness, both in art and in life.” Mabel Dodge