OUTSIDER ART FOR THE CAR PARK:

Three men paint white lines in the carpark on a fresh piece
of tarmac. No one went to art school, but the lines are just
as beautiful, powerful, resonant. One stands watching with
his fists in hooded pockets. The other two on their knees,
but only one is painting, stroking the fresh black canvas
with the stub of a brush caked glutinous in white, a scrap of
board pressed beneath split knuckles as a straight line.
The third is an alter boy, on his knees, reverently watching,
silent. The first, the hoody with the fists, rolls back on
boots, looks down dispensing wisdom from a wide slit of a mouth
relentlessly cracking beneath a close shaved dome. The second,
the painter, strokes the road, replies with incantations, never
drops a beat. The second, the alter boy, fingers spread on legs
points down towards his knees, sits back on heels in prayer,
watching the master, serene.
The white line oozes from the tip of the brush, the canvas smells
of tar, the first keeps rocking on his heels spilling poetry on
the head of the painter as the alter boy’s turns to alabaster.
A rusted triangle, a theatre sign, an invitation to an
exhibition, ‘Men At Work’, erected to inform the passing of
shoppers glaze, oblivious to the art that’s being made for them
if they were bothered in the carpark.

(K)