Monday, June 13, 2016

there's a lot on my mind. some of it fell out.


there's a futurama meme of the professor saying, "i don't want to live on this planet anymore."
i wonder when we'll be able to get off of here and live on mars.
i wonder what mars would have done to deserve us or if earth will martyr itself to save the universe from us instead.

i've been listening to my playlist of poetry slams on youtube.
i always start writing like this when i listen to my poetry slams.
the poets have taught me about politics and pain and racism and loving and hating and being beautiful and laughing til i pee myself.
and i'm listening because i don't know how much more i can cry over this land.
i'm listening because i can't figure out if it's okay for me to feel happiness again.
i'm listening because i'm exhausted from listening to my own thoughts. poets make cohesive thoughts, and i've never been good at that.
they know the power a voice can have. they do not take that power lightly. their poems have been born out of silence, that loudest kind of noise.
tonight i need the poets.

i started thinking of frida kahlo.
her paintings are passed over as weird. surrealism. ugly.
i almost agreed except i saw more than that even if i couldn't name it. i learned about her life full of pain, struggles, death and lost love.
she painted her love, which is weird. she painted her love and the death in her life, so surreal. she painted her pain, and pain is not pretty. can we stop trying to make tragedy beautiful just because it seems easier to swallow?
the loss of a life you so dearly wanted to live can not be felt by a picture of a pretty little flower. what do you expect to see?
her paintings are beautiful because of the bold way she expressed herself like all the painters and sculptures before and after her.
tonight i need the artists.

i am listening to florence and the machine a lot.
maybe it's just a music style i like.
i always say she sings like a canon. or maybe that's how i feel when i sing with her. i always feel like i'm yelling. beautiful, meaningful yelling.
she always gets played when i'm feeling too much.
i've been playing her a lot lately.
songs accompanied by an orchestra while i "look for a breath of life" and thinking that's the phrase i needed to explain myself.
tonight i need the musicians.

this stared with mention of a meme. there's more than a meme can ever explain going on in the world. and until i figure out if i agree with the professor, my prayers are in the form of listening, looking and yelling.
the ones who know to let vicitms be hear, tragedies be seen, emotions be felt.

i'm too tired to figure this out.
i'm not even sure what i'm trying to say now. but the poets on the playlist aren't done, so i'm still writing.
but you know what?
the poets, the artists, the musicians speak, paint, sing out the pain to make room for the hope.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

completed a book's worth.

i have finally completed making blackout poetry of book. the original book was about christian art through the early years. i have posted up some examples of the images and some of the poems themselves. this is not the book in its entirety as that is its own piece. but i wanted to share some with you. those from the book are titled by the page number from which they were taken.

page 66

speak a language
of
humanity
that
detracts
political importance




page 128

originality ignores
the facade






page 64

one of the purest examples of
original appearance
idea
so simple as to seem almost bare.






page 142

become
a masterpiece of
simplicity



page 152

story
of
struggle