ARTISTIC VANDALS
"A wall is a very big weapon. It's one of the nastiest things you can hit someone with." ~ Bansky
You need to get on YouTube and search for “graffiti art.” Seriously. It will blow your mind what’s out there. Nothing like the crude spray painted “tags” that first come to mind with the word “graffiti,” but amazing art. Beautiful, mind-blowing, creativity on walls and sidewalks and streets. Take the time to bring this craft into your life. You won’t be disappointed. Today’s poem is a bit about that.
ARTISTIC VANDALS
Street artists
with paints and chalks
create gaping 3-D holes
on flat solid concrete streets
and bronze trumpets
from ugly gas pipes
with brushstrokes of genius
seeing things others don’t
seeing surprising possibilities
in urban utilitarian landscapes.
Their optical illusions of wonder
turn the ordinary into art:
cement walls become touching murals,
like “Dear Dad” in Detroit,
and walkways morph into playgrounds,
where normally sedate adults skip
and jump down illusory stairs
into make-believe caverns
or tiptoe on delicate bridges
crossing over imaginary underworlds
replete with flying dragons
and flowing rivers of fire
all images created by master-
minds who re-master the mundane
cityscape with their visions
of fun and fantasy.
Graffiti art on Waterloo Bridge
immortalizes a little girl holding
a red heart-shaped balloon,
with a reminder that, “There is always hope.”
These spray-painted wall tapestries
these hard thought-out murals
depict politics, satire, humor, hope,
and portray tributes that cause
souls to laugh, minds to think,
and hearts to remember:
Maggie Simpson on the Cote d’Azur
Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles
Jim Morrison at Venice Beach.
Street artists work large
but are largely unknown,
their masterpieces on the street
not hanging in the Louvre:
Billelis, Strader, Lady Pink, Banksy,
so-called vandals by some who
see this art as defaced property
and remain obscenely blind to
its brain-melting
brilliance.