The Artist of the Inside and Out

                    Doesn’t have time for that 

                    He needs steady money 

                    For rent, milk, and bread

                    He can write poetic verse 

                    In his dream, from his bed

                    Sleeping on rough sheets

                    Count one hundred thread

                    He is royalty in his home

                    An old chair is his throne

                    The sweet wife treats him

                    Like the king of old Rome

                    He uses plaster mix to spray 

                    Against the walls, steel gray 

                    Red bricks he lays, fast pace 

                    To build the rich man’s place 

                    He can’t sing, his lips hum

                    As he is using the nail gun

                    Working till the day’s done 

                    Proud to provide for his son 

                    Faraway, perhaps Mumbai

                    Doubts take a worker apart

                    —  Is he more than his pay?

                    Or just a number in a chart?

                    Unable to see his entire craft 

                    Men lost touch with their art

                    Mastering but a smaller part

                    Repetitive task is hard, hard!