Kendrick Smithyman

View of the City, in Oil

Invest this proper canvas with its people.
One site behind the curtains, counting
Away the years, sorry for those fables
Most likely never true. One is fainting
Because the summer is too much for her.
Another speaks forever to his mother,
His sister hides a love she cannot offer.

Riper than death they are concealing now
The pecks of passion withering the roots.
They are the plants that cannot bear their fruits.
The powers they name are not the powers they know.
Implacable the cancer in them starts
To wear the artist out upon his arts.