Mirror of the Artist

from Resurrection by swampmessiah

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lyrics

The mirror of the artist reflects only vanity. Not the vanity of surfaces, of the daily beauty that artists handle with dexterity, but the vanity of righteousness. The artist has a secluded pulpit and a roaming voice, a pride and condemnation traveling into the unsuspecting viewer’s home, in through eyes and ears, to say who’s the holiest of them all, who’s the true prophet and judge.
The mirror of the artist reflects the history of doubt. The first moments of shame brought to life by some unworldly power. The reaction of certainty and the underlying questions of worth, and the final certainty—of imperfection and failure.
The mirror of the artist gives back the essence of self-pity. Like the oceans, you would think it is endless. Like a chamber of mirrors or a chain of fractals, each new look, each closer inspection is only a smaller version of the initial image, a repetition of what we already know all too well.
The mirror of the artist is never a friend. Friends have something of their own to give. They don’t just boomerang the fears you’ve given them, gift-wrapped in a left-right reversal but otherwise intact. Friends distill your truths within themselves, steaming off the destruction you’ve failed to isolate, cooking out the hateful toxins, to bring back to you a balm of your own goodness, with which they will anoint you.
And you, the artist, reciprocate. This is the only way an artist can step past the mirror, to give others more than vanity, self-pity and doubt.

credits

from Resurrection, released September 28, 2022

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about

swampmessiah Saint Paul, Minnesota

I was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1957. I've been drawing all my life and painting since about 1975; I started writing poetry and rants in, maybe, 1976; since 1996 I've been recording those poems and rants, usually with a "musical" backing.
I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota. My partner and I have two children. I have a day job that is in no way artistic. ... more