Poetryspam part 2

[keestone]

Public Art
By Michael Hartnett

At least a heap of metal by a wall
sends out some signals;
and rotten timber on a beach
and rusting hulks make homes for shrimps and fleas.
A broken wheel, a length of copper pipe,
their very remnants speak a language;
they are at least a part
of the vocabulary of the tribe.
But this, my sculptor friend,
this borrowing from some theory of some school
is a vision neither theirs nor yours
but stands, a botch of hieroglyphs
the people can't relate to, cannot feel,
detracting from the meaning of the street
and the curving of the hills
with its foreign alphabet of stone and steel.