[Split]

A novice drawing teacher, with coffee, keys,
coat slung on shoulder, locked his glossy Beamer
and crossed the street, busy thinking over...
...everything, drips of thought rippled into
faucet speed. His aesthetically chiseled nose was
awash in the softest gleam, from his freshly inked diploma:
he'd framed the oft-dreamed of achievement in jeweler's glass...

... John was scheming up a future path, a long career,
soon to be reared from his tenure at N.C. State.
Measured, at any rate, by paintings, charcoals, acryllics,
all babies inside this harbored image. His narcissism
was carved with an artists' touch, sloppily hid-
it was hard enough to stem his creative tide
and blend in upon inspection by the laymens' eyes.
Impatience was fostered by his lofty ambitions.
Lost within himself. Lost in adopted mannerisms,
a savant with no tangible competition.
Something runs rampant in him.
He managed it with constant vision.
A on-and-off -productive brand of sickness,
a draught drank far from sight-
Creative talent always bottled tight...
but allowed his mind to wander as he walked at night,
and oggle at light that contours, drops and darts
in crests & falls between columns, in the troughs of arcs,
bled on glass, and water features in Raleigh's many parks.
"Now or never" explained this...fettered greatness
in tense containment. He longed to create,
every moment, second, but locked the process away.
Much like light at night... it would blossom, spray
with fervor if cover of darkness dropped its guard...
Spread, like awareness among the plebs that fought in wars
with bids, and bought the art the truly gifted were tossing forth-

But this light was not bargained for...
it was ugly, stark, and tore his vision from
the document in his hands. As John turned, alarmed,
to face the city bus...

He's not gonna understand,
but he learned the hard way what his place in the city was.
Just another statistic.
What gushed from the busted prism
that was once his head was simply blood.
"This is the end...? but I wasn't finished..."