graffiti philosophy

There are lots of things I probably could or should write about instead, but despite events in the lives of people I know as well as the larger world, I think I'm'a stick with what's been working lately. In other words, using my blog as a kind of glorified poem and lyric repository, when I don't have anything else to say that I think is really worthwhile.

Many people come to my store for many reasons. Several days ago, I had a conversation with a fellow who described himself as a graffiti artist, and though our conversation on the subject was brief I was oddly moved by it. We all struggle to communicate with each other--sometimes even people who are very close have trouble getting a particular message across. Even though some graffiti has a social element, people indicating that a certain area is within their gang's "territory", the vast, vast majority of it is just people writing their own names. Stealing the use of other people's walls, windows, vehicles, in the attempt to get across a single message; I exist. It matters to me that you know this.
Who knows why I wrote a poem about this, rather than many other things I could just have easily written a poem about. XD I've half promised Amber I'd do one about cheese--it's harder than I thought to write a poem about cheese, but I'll get there! I guess I've been thinking about communication, messages, and social roles a lot lately. There's a reference in the ninth line to--oh, i forget who the famous dead poet was, but I'll google the quote: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings / Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair."
XD Oh yeah. Re-reading that poem makes me acutely aware that I need to brush up my own skills.


As if the wall I wrote across looked back,
as if the stone and plaster said, "right on,"
as if storm winds could never peel or crack
this message, and you saw me. But I'm gone
to ground. I wear a bland, familiar mask.
You smile at me and do not ask my name,
our lives walled in by each familiar task.
Yet here before these stones, we are the same.
Look on my words. You might--but don't!--despair,
though yours, like mine, are scrubbed away too soon.
We still possess the hands to scrawl them there,
and eyes to read, by streetlight, sun or moon.
Go, walk your quiet halls. But when you see
a bland face smiling, wonder--is that me?