If you've ever travelled the M40
on the crawl to work or play
then you can't have missed this eight foot fence
saying 'Why do I do this every day?'
Picture
Eleven daring painters
Fifty tins of gloss
Bombing down the motorway
to the tune of Fraggle Rock
Eleven audacious pixies
painting til it's light
When battered, paint spattered
elated and shattered
they dispersed,
into the night.
Well if you think graffiti is mindless
then your forgetting the countless
people posing an existential question
as they sit through the congestion.
And if you think graffiti's a social blight
and should all be scrubbed away
then with our brushes and our spray cans
we will fight you all the way.
And if you think graffiti is criminal damage
then we don't care at all
because if bill boards can promote bombing
then we can paint a wall
And as I read once on a wall somewhere
emblazoned in silver spray
'If the world were to end tomorrow
then I'd still paint today'
Well three cheers for that Mr Pixie
With your brush in your hand you're a god
we're one hundred percent behind you
in the graffiti protection squad.
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2 comments:
Hi Claire,
Its Colombia Pete here from Oxford. My band The Buena Vista Socialists perform a song abou this piece of motorway graffitti called 'Why do I do this every day'. I wrote it after my friend told me that seeing it changed his life . One day he read it and decided to finish it with his girlfriend who he travelled into London to see all the time - IT WORKS!! Also, the problem with the rat race is even if you win you're still a rat!
I had no idea who wrote this when i found it on a postcard it ended up in my scrapbook called the book of sunny spells (a pun for all my pagan friends who keep a book of shadows).
So I beg forgiveness when i read it out among the smiling faces around the fire while camping and it held it's own amongst all the bards brought a smile to many but definately got a cheer here's to you and your beautiful poem here's to all the Banksy's and to all the people who drive past a wall in Brighton everyday that says Go on phone in sick Peace & Fluffy Vibes k-quay
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