The Lament

How much could one of my stature be worth? My Father was a chimney sweep. My Mother was a chimney sweep their Parents were covered in soot until their dying day. My fate could only be that of a loathsome toad crawling upon the earth searching for devices, to subside the feeling of his apparent failures. They say that one’s past is the voice of future events. Could my fate be that of a monster looking upon a mountain filled with waving ancestry covered in fine black powder? How much must a man suffer to break traditions of poverty second guessing my ability to draw, second guessing my entire being to be sweep back into my long past of surviving forbearers. Who cares for me really? Is there a pallbearer that even has interest in towing my body away? Let me think, I know! I will write my “Will” the last testament of a man who writes only twice a month and draws everyday while painting to make a living. Perhaps it was a sign when I wrote my dear mother for the last time after her death I simply stared at the inheritance left behind. You guessed it! A large cubby hole filled with every brush the imagination could have dreamed up. This life, I thought as I stared frightfully at the atrocities before me. My bloodline, approximately 7,898 people who sweep chimneys all their lives they did nothing but that. As depression takes me into the land of no return I must break tradition as I did years ago, yes when I was but a young tyke. I was searching for myself and the meaning of this life lo’ and behold a grown man and I am still on that mission. What does it mean to be an Adult? What does it mean to be human? How must I find a way to the reality I crave? I first must dive into my past an apothecary at last! Tobias “The Terrible Lumpkin” that’s what the name was in 1st Grade. Tobias drawing his teachers’ likeness in the daily mail “The Hag of West Country”. A similar likeness could be had today Tobias “The Artist Lumpkin”. The jovial Dominion of Witches burned! The Hill-Side wait! I’ll draw it! The Pen dancing across blank paper as hope, a sparkle in his eyes a descended angel from heaven. The wheels on Hell could surely account. Does it look like a Hill? Does it have sides? Identify yourself? An artist who can’t draw a Hill with sides? Tobias Lumpkin, an idiot possessing nothing, no ability other than that of a chimney sweep! Your heart and hair grading are identical “Thin!” Too thin for an audience of your peers! Loathsome pale little man, worth nothing, but a French Quill! It was given to you by a desperate organization hoping for the notoriety of a sign or symbol of some sort. Oh! There the sign is “Tobias, Tachycardia, Taeniasis and Tar Syndrome! Be honest Tobias you are a chimney sweep not the great Leonardo De Vinci that you’ve admired so. You live in a world of fancies unbeknownst to the sane’ and healthy. You’ve had a good run and you have had a terrible solemn existence. Look at you, bags around your eyes trying to draw once again. There is only nine days until your rent of three shillings and twelve pence is due. You haven’t gotten any sleep and you have only one skill “Painting”. The failings of the few often outweigh the many that have responsible jobs. Miners, Iron foundries, Apothecary and even the most loved chimney sweeping reserved for children like you. If you stop messing, with pens and looking at funny colored liquid you can save yourself! Go see the chimney master so he can beg for your small crawl space you call a domicile for living! Don’t worry your life will not be felonious intent just madness under the year of our lord 1823. Knock, Knock, Knock! AH! A reprieve, the brave woman that has come to see your paintings,

Sophisticated woman who smelled of money the lonely images of disdain against the wall no doubt repeats of old sellers. The so-called Artist responds to a floating question. I do believe the painting you speak of resides in the corner it was a failed project, not worth much, but maybe fifteen pence. Low pitched and Low sounding the likeness of fancied notion from a Noble Child “Can a Donkey speak sir”? The answer was “No, I’d suspect it would be too sad and overworked”. Likewise for fancied mad men with dreams of being, sophisticated, a gentleman in the West Country. Arrays of color symbolizing fabled lore that words could only describe. Green fields of life, could an artist capture this feeling of home? Sure! If here lied an artist with 30-shillings in his hand clinching it as if he’d found God’s gift to mankind thereof. I guess one more work could be drawn, one more light lit, one more thought clinched in the heart of boy with dreams. He had Dreams of becoming an artist acquiring wealth and hope. He wants to change Tobias the Terrible Lumpkin’s fate. It’s where I live, an artist like I could never paint such a scene. I could never send myself to the dreams I once knew, and the feelings felt can never be again. As a child thinking thoughts, free from hindrance my world different. The idea of being able to draw anything was my youth. Here lies my youth, a fruitful demonic seed in the mold of the Earth. Starving! My creative soul led by a small helm of a ship, a tiller or wheel? Jovial Dominions of Demons the ravings of an ear cutting mad man off to sea or maybe the River Styx. I shall find myself in the number of life, the eternal eight, going round and round forever. Tobias “The Terrible Lumpkin” I do believe that’s changed.