Writers Without Borders

Art

The exercise books at my new school
had no margins; no lines; I
think they were really for
drawing but someone had got a job lot
cheap. Without restrictions my
words sprawled all over the page
and as much as I tried to keep them
straight, looking back, they would be
sloping up, or sloping down. I ruled
my own faint lines as the untidiness
troubled me, and seemed to take
away any skill or impact from what
I had written.

Now to analyse this, and make a
crude and crass comparison with
the current political situation; based
on the above, Mr Speaker, speaking
metaphorically I would say that we
need borders or people don’t know
if what they have done is good. They
need to know what the rules are (rules
you see? Like ruled lines on a page!)
and whither they extend. Otherwise
they will not satisfy themselves, will
Not die happy.

Or perhaps they will stop writing
altogether, and see it for what it is:
a code to speed up survival, and
instead become artists! All my metaphors
and similes are mixed up now in pots
of bright colours, and as I take the
energy squeezed from the word-paint-
tube and smear It all over the paper,
there are no measures to get in the
way of my flowing creation, and the
sloping lines no longer wrong.
I paint a summer’s end and an autumn
beginning. Do you still need to see it
Now I’ve told you the end?