Chaos Theory - A Plea Poem by cahen thrips

My work is a precursor to Sally Sluiskil's -
you haven't heard of her yet but she's famous
as poet artist modern day avant garde shifter
moving art into unexpected shapes of being.

They say her artistic genius is influenced by me
my late-worked poems and paintings which I will
create tomorrow or perhaps the day after
if I can at last motivate my ageing fingers.

Sally likes what she sees in my frail art
realising everyone else misses the point -
on her part it's less crusade more epiphany
a damascene dawn for which she gives me credit.

Thanks to her people begin to read my poems
start to look at my paintings with understanding
seeing non-existent delicate threads of meaning
unintended yet activating academia - like Plath.

Sally's a worthy successor to my subtle art
and now thanks to her patronage I'm famous
posthumously for what I've yet to create though
as I said you won't have heard of Sally because...

... this startling artist has yet to be conceived
and but for happenstance it could even be
that her parents may never meet at all
in which case Sally Sluiskil will not be born.

Then I will not see my work hanging in the
Tate Modern or recited in translation by millions
across the world a sure consequence being that
my entire oeuvre will instead be sent to landfill.

Now this is a plea for Sally's mother and father -
at the end of the road: turn left instead of right
as usual and when you meet, don't use a condom
so you sow the seeds of Sally and my reticent fame.

February 2022