Tossing up whether to stay,
in trouble for needling tone
weeding out redundancy,
extraneous “that’s”,
nervous “buts” grating,
musicians can’t get away with
bum notes, a voice singing flat,
drums out of time, violin out of tune.
In writing and painting,
does anything go?
with crafty nitpicking
dropped stitches unravel knitting.
“Art is a matter of opinion”
bleats the vainglorious fool,
“to write at all is better than silence”
yet quietude is restful and brainfarts terrorize,
crackling chip packets in cinemas,
literary abstract expressionists
demand respect for widdershin words,
the minimalist scribes for a single dot
in the centre of the page
.
what’s the bloody point of words anyway
if clumsy drivel is high art too,
do you feel anything at all?
do you suck or blow?
Jinjirrie, February 2021