Did you know that he lived in a hole in the wall,
And fed off the pebbles he stole from the wall?
He’d paint by the flame of a paraffin candle
And feel his way round like a mole in the wall,
Sorting ashes of dusk from droplets of dawn
And gathering clouds in a bowl on the wall.
With fire in his belly and eyes in his hands,
He blended release and control in the wall,
Divining a palette to illumine the gloom
Of winter nights as dark as coal in the wall,
Dipping his brushes in pulverised sunlight,
To create a canvas of the whole of the wall.
He was taken one leap year, folded in time,
But left us the glow of his soul in the wall.
