Ode to Lisa, in Memory of Michael Stewart
“Lisa of the World”!
Every day I love you, solemn signature
black-sprayed on tan-gray warehouse wall.
From my bus ride ‘mid printed prattle
I look up, after reading how we helped fight commies
yesterday,
afraid to face the editorial page -- and
there,
along with all the alliterators,
“Shorty
Shawn,” “
the baddest
bard of
She’s not trapped, like rappers’ couplets claiming,
from “ashes to ashes; dust to dust,”
how they
are “gonna
make it; or else we’ll bust” in rhyme
(co-optible
as drunken sailors’ songs,
embedded for the culture vultures in
iambic péntaméter
white male tales);
She’s from the obverse (street-
level) side of omnipotent Reagan-
city, and cares for the souls
of the underground artist heroes,
fallen in battles with local
officials who try to deny Her.
“Lisa of the World”!
I don’t want to buy you flowers,
but a state-of-the-art spraypaint can
(automatic flow control,
digital readout of paint used and paint
remaining)
illustrated like the shield of Achilles:
scenes of
slave rebellions and civil rights
campaigns, of
stars and planets colliding …
(1/86)
[At the time this was written the work of Lisa and others could be seen
on a wall across Bladensburg Road from an abandoned fried chicken carry-out (both
since torn down), about a block north of the intersection with Maryland Avenue,
N.E., Washington, DC. Michael Stewart, a
subway graffiti artist, was killed by
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