We Only Celebrate the Arts in February

Oh poor February… the unseen brushstroke,

The tune that whimpers down to a sad joke.

In twenty-eight days, a canvas of sighs

Shall entomb my nights. Art dies... with a price.

Teary-eyed, I paint the colors I’m told

I sing their stories, mold figures of gold!

With my lines ignored, my bills left unpaid;

I cry, “Am I still owed for all I toiled?”

Nay, tell me-

Who here recalls the artist’s weary hands

That penned both time and space on shifting sands?

Who here mourns the verses, the rhythms missed–

Like lone tears that fall and fade in the mist?

In quiet protest, my own blistered thumbs

Bent beneath the sheer weight of what becomes:

The artist is lost! While feeding the light!

Unheard, out of sight, denied of our right;

What kind of poet weaves the world’s own soul, 

Then vanishes? Unknown, undone, unwhole?

Audiences praise only the gilded few,

While I–like dust and soot–get blown from view. 

Yes; I carved my truth with a trembled hand,

Yet, no one can hear, none can understand. 

Afterall, when the final curtain falls,

Who will stay to return the artists’ calls?

And still; will silence rise? Will voices stray?

Or slip like February, with shades of gray?