RESTLESS WATERS & OTHER POEMS

“It is restless waters only, that reach the highest rocks”


THE ARTIST


one-eyed
Leon
the artist

bearded eye-patched
like a russian spy

Leon of the streets
of Wynberg (appropriate)

Always asking
for money
for paints

but I knew his pluck

the colours were either
red or white

WINE!

He fooled the old ladies
and if they didn’t
give him money
but rather bought him paints
then he sold the paints
and bought himself wine.

asked Tretchikoff for paints
when he met him in the CNA.
Tretchy called him a drunk
told him to get off his butt
and paint and sweat if he could!

Tretchy was God in those days
in the late sixties
the ladies swooned over him in Garliks
in Claremont
“oooh there’s Tretchikoff.”

But I knew better.
Leon was an artist
it was in his blood
his blood of red wine flowing

I first met Leon when I was a kid

he used to visit my mother
and bum money for paint
they sometimes got drunk together.

I felt pity for Leon
I was an idealist
didn’t want to see a great man
fall like shit from a horse’s arse on a lonely road to nowhere.

He lived in a derelict room in Wynberg
I used to leave bread and milk and
sometimes honey outside his door

I knocked once
and he opened and let me in

he was just starting on a piece of hardboard
just given it a coat of white

I spent he day and watched him paint
and drink and paint and drink
and the canvass come alive with rivers and trees
and purple mountains and sunlight that was real
he was my hero
he was Michealangelo
he was Monet
He sucked the wine and he painted
and I was in awe

he said “let’s go sell this fucker…have you any busfare”
I paid the fare for both of us
went to Rondebosch to a famous student joint
called the Pig ‘n Whistle
with an oil wet canvass

he hawked the painting in no time
the eye-patch and the beard and the long slender painters
fingers helped and the black beret he wore
capped the image

a student bought the image for two rands
I was angry
two rands for a masterpiece, an original
Leon said “it’s ok it’s a fair price”

we took a bus back to Wynberg
he went to the shebeen and bought a can of wine
I went home and dreamt
of Monet and van Gogh and Michealangelo.
That was when I was 14

over the years as I grew up and started
work I saw Leon from time to time
sometimes in expensive suits
sometimes filthy bloodied and desperate

One of his paintings hung in the foyer of the Vineyard hotel

I once invited him home for a meal and to meet my new wife

he pissed on my couch, just sat there and let it all out without moving
he was so drunk
he passed out and i covered him with a rug

when he left in the morning he asked my wife for money for
paint

I never saw him again after that

but whenever I happen to be in Wynberg, walking the streets of
Wynberg i say to myself
“this is Leon the artist’s Wynberg.”