rioting crowd in the east-village squire,
crowds part in a brooding haze,
and a dice rolls across the years, stumbling
oh he painted himself a fool, luck hangs blasé

brush and crayon trace over lush ruin as etruscan love
pierces this thin veil of civilisation,
once coloured in imprisoned
years of ambition

and irony is warm and it glows 'cause
time is a conundrum, a fate, a paradox – and thoughts
are irrelevant in this oak-veiled cage,
for when the unimpressionist sings,
dreams start to sway

in a vaulted room, basalt
vases hold flowers,
****** bare of fruitful love
by the unimpressionist,
who holds pride and flattery high above

and outside the cage, the artist lifts his paintbrush
oh he dreams all too aimlessly, alight with naïveté

and as he pulls down jewelled ashtrays and the night-sky of tangier, he takes another smoke,
little artist doesn't paint for himself
statued replicator of somebody else

"ignorance is always so selfless and so kind"

his words form an echo at the end of his time
disapproval lingers in this great artful lie,
he's been played sideways, been handled and pawned
now the unimpressionist hangs
trapped, feeble
warned