The Primitive Painter Poem by David Lewis Paget

He was leaning against the wall, backed up
And staring through fumes of gin and whiskey,
Glaring at all the toffs, dressed up
And ravelling through his sordid history.

But never a sense of ‘us’ with him
He was more like a raging arcane animal,
Caught and caged, as they looked right in
To poke and pry at his painted trammel.

Oils and charcoals, water colours,
Pinned like an insect by their gazing,
Pointing fingers would rape his skin
Pick through his pockets, grinning, gaping.

What would they know of his woods and fields,
The towering oak, or the dew at dawning?
Only the light that a lamp post yields
In the mean streets when the world is yawning.

Theirs was a world of tile and brick
Of diesel fumes and the rail line snaking,
His were the hills of hay and rick
The tumbledown cot and the farmer, raking.

‘What did you bring me here to spill? ’
He said to the shyster gallery owner,
‘There’s nothing you couldn’t print at will
With a Laser print, and a barrel of toner.’

‘They’re coming in hordes to see your myth,
You’re a breath of air in a jaded Autumn,
A genuine Primitive, Jordan Griff,
I lured them in, and your work has caught them.’

But Jordan scowled and he curled his lip
As the crowd milled using an unknown language,
‘I’d rather be down at the ‘Rope and Skip’
With a pint of ale and a cold meat sandwich! ’

‘You’re really an artist? ’ said the woman
Who stood at his shoulder, pale and shaking,
‘I like the one at the farmer’s gate
With the girl, head bowed, as her heart is breaking.’

Griff looked deep in the woman’s eyes
For the chord she’d struck was his secret mourning,
‘How did you know? ’ He’d sobered up,
‘I was the girl your paint was born in! ’

Jordan halted his glass, mid-sip,
He seized her hand as his heart was pacing,
‘Years have slipped between cup and lip,
I’d give them all for a second tasting! ’

He led her into a lumber room
And she locked the door as they pulled apart,
Then found some cushions and in the gloom
They lay on the floor there, making art.

That’s how his Primitives came to start
With a joy not there at his god-rot dawning,
A horse and cart with his palette heart,
And a tousled woman each tumbledown morning!

8 November 2013