Last Chinese Painting lesson 

The lesson overran by an hour
Not that I was painting any slower

I did stow away my brushes slower though
Buying time for my teacher to go

I say that in the way I fiddle with folded paper
Begrudgingly thrusting the brushes into water

I suppose I was playing a tantrum really
It was the first time in a decade for me

Still I painted with a disquiet heart
Hoping to grasp the foggy image in my luck

Soak and shackle that idea through water onto paper
To see the perfection I want to savour

There was an anger only boiling and spitting
It took a lot not to tear up everything

As romanticised as is the crushing pursuit of artistic vision
I was still tempted to destroy every loathsome creation

I think of ruffling papers raining from a desk
And the agonised cry of a poet in despair

The Nine Muses have deserted me
Only so little is relieved through a scream

Last I recalled upset by Art I was a child
Suppose I had rekindled something defiled

The rest of the day I could not do anything
My sails lacking in both effort and wind

I keep thinking of the spreading ink
That colours the full range of sinking ships in the basin

Am I allowed to take comfort in that
Finally keep my brushes and place the paper in a stack

And hold onto that fleeting connection
To a dreaming child and emotional gratification