The Painter Poem by Tony Adah

The painter knew only a little
How to scribble names of things
For much of school was scarce in his head
He sat under a tree canopy
Near his tent house.
His dungarees dripping with fresh paint
And flecks of old ones cracked all over
His chest and thighs
Of blue, brown, green, pink and yellow
Were the patches on his old black boots.

The under tree was was both a workshop
And a house for a tent house yawned
With an open door
Old cardboards, canvas and discarded
And unclaimed works littered his premises
Spent paint tons stood with squalid rainwater
Where wriggled mosquito larva
That looked like tadpoles.

He is a painter with great acumen
In brush and paint but a laggard at spellings
He wrote words like sovaneer, skool, pewpul
And motu kar on works that littered his shop
The big letters dripped with pointed lines
And lumps of paint below them.

To draw the painter's attention to the misspellings
Was to draw a long quarrel with him
Anyone who dared it never used his street
What about his clients?
Perhaps they were worst for
The painter's anomaly of spellings!