Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

PhotoPoem – Truth

Posted: June 15, 2015 in Poetry
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It’s been a good long while since I posted one of these photography/poetry combination posts, and since it has been so long I will be posting one of my favorite poems that I have written in recent years paired with one of my earliest shots while I was still at the Academy of Art in SF. While I love this poem, it is more of a slam/performance poem than the others I have posted here, so I am unsure how true it will read compared to a live performance…pun slightly intended. Here’s the Truth.

 

Poster Wall BW

Truth

What is Truth?

It is the thing which hits you late at night,

When you are alone, clinging to nothing but darkness,

Like a war-torn lover holding onto the remnants,

Of the memory of what love was before they killed it.

It hits you like a sledgehammer defenestrated from a 10th story window.

Suddenly and with explosive force it shatters ego,

Breaking the everpresent manufactured techno bubble,

Freeing your consciousness as it freefalls into your skull.

                               WHAM!

You’re enlightened. Buddha never said it was so easy,

Easy like a drunk prom date in the back of your Chevy.

No condom date-rape baby, you’re both not ready…

For Truth,

The used condom of a generation wasted.

Venerated and penetrated in dark alleys,

In vacant lots and with vacant eyes,

The flagrant signs of a person abused.

Used and confused, we wander empty streets.

Empty selves looking for our next fix, addicts.

Spiritually hollow we’ll cram anything in that hole,

Chicken soup souls for the soulless faux wholeness.

 

We’re frightened, of ourselves and of our neighbors.

No savior in sight, try as we might, we are alone.

In front of TV screens, computer monitors,

Even sitting next to eachother, we are alone.

Homeless veteran who fought for a lie, dying in the streets,

Frozen in your sleep, please don’t cry…

Because Truth…

Like time heals all wounds and soon it will sledgehammer shatter

The mimeo-obscura movie screen false reality,

Samsara scented visions that cloud our thoughts,

Causing society to rot the apple core of knowledge.

But even a rotten core can still hold seeds,

If cultivated with care we can grow something new.

Reach within your own rotten core,

And seek the seeds inside.

Nurture well with tender care,

A phoenix waits to rise.

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PhotoPoem – Winter of Discontent

Posted: May 14, 2014 in Poetry
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It’s been a while since I posted one of these photography/poetry combination posts, too long. I’m working on getting back into a habit of regularly scheduled postings. Things have just been chaotic lately with other writing projects, including writing for an online cannabis newspaper, The Leaf Online.

I’ve got a love poem today, something mushy and romantic as a break from some of the darker poems I have posted in the past. I wrote this one the other night while thinking about my long distance relationship.

Welcome to Green Valley, clearly named by the same person who discovered Greenland.

Welcome to Green Valley, clearly named by the same person who discovered Greenland.

Winter of Discontent

Being apart from you is my winter of discontent,

And it’s one cold winter out here alone.

I’ll use my melancholy until it’s spent,

Writing to warm up these chilled bones.

 

Everything feels wrong when you are gone,

Life’s colors bleed through to gray.

You’ve always been a queen to this lowly pawn,

You’re the sun that lights my day.

 

When we’re together I can weather whatever,

No matter the weather I know we’ll be fine.

When we’re together there’s no need to remember,

Your smile is all I see.

 

But now we’re apart, how it’s been from the start,

Starcrossed lovers never cross paths easily.

So fragile, this distance is breaking our hearts,

But soon we’ll be together endlessly.

 

Our paths are entwined, as I’m yours you are mine.

So let Spring come to my Winter.

 

Why Do You Read This Blog

Posted: January 17, 2014 in Art, Bike Culture, Burning Man, Cannabis, Cooking, DIY, Fashion, History, Internet, Literature, Music, Poetry, Politics, Religion, Science, Sex Positive, Wasted Nights and Wasted Youth
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Hey readers, I’ve recently begun wondering if my blog might be too diverse in focus for my readership and I am debating limiting my focus on this blog and starting another one for other posts or possibly something else. As a person who has many focuses in life and does many things I wanted a blog that reflects that, but I worry people might feel spammed with posts that are not relevant to their interests (you are here for DIY but I just keep posting about politics, or vice versa).

Here is your chance and your place to tell me what you come here for and what you’d like to see more of. You can choose up to 3 options on the poll and even add your own options if I missed something.

PhotoPoem – Silence

Posted: December 28, 2013 in Burning Man, Music, Poetry
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Last night I went out to see Infected Mushroom and Savant, it was my first time seeing either and the first I had heard Savant (who was amazing). It inspired this poem, I may still add more I may leave it here. I want to do some readings on it before deciding, but I am definitely bothered by one stanza ‘missing a line,’ but not sure what I want to add/subtract. Time till tell.

The Man Burns (2013)

The Man Burns (2013)

Silence

In that silence you can hear a pin drop,

Like the bass dropped only moments before.

Body still thumping pulsing to ghostsounds,

That drown out the reality that surrounds.

 

Body becomes subwoofer, reacting to bass and sub-bass,

That falls loud enough to drown out the treble and mid-bass.

The bass that falls like a thunderclap, manna from Heaven.

The bass that plays now only for me, a mental music box.

 

And now, in that eternal silence… lifetimes, eons, fit into seconds.

Like a furry coat fits into a handbag on your way home,

Too overheated still to wear despite the winter’s cold chill.

 

All around, the silence dwells, a veil covering mouth, muted speak no evil,

Stuck on introspection, pausing for self reflection in these quiet moments.

The joint sits burning in his hand, my hand, her hand, our hands.

It burns but doesn’t go out, like the sound resounding in my head.

 

What I wouldn’t do for a beat that grabs my heart by the strings,

Forcing me to dance like a marionette, DJ as puppetmaster.

What I wouldn’t give for a beat that massages my neo-cortex,

Producing vortex of thought, paroxysm of emotion.

 

And in that silence, I see the joint drop,

Like the pin I heard a moment before,

Reminiscent of the bass, but a memory

Embers on the floor.

PhotoPoem – I Am My Threadbare Suit

Posted: December 13, 2013 in History, Poetry, Politics
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I Am My Threadbare Suit

From far away when people see me,

They see a white man in a suit.

They see my brown hair, freckles,

And the bags under my brown eyes.

 

They don’t see my Portuguese ancestry.

Immigrants like everyone else,

Who came here seeking a better life,

And got it through blood and sweat.

 

They don’t see the esteemed privilege,

Of growing up white in the suburbs.

Being gaybashed in middle school,

To the point where you leave school.

 

They don’t see that my three piece suit,

Which looks flawless from a far,

Is threadbare, breaking down, and worn out,

Held together by string and staples, love and hope.

 

They don’t see that my eyes used to change colors.

Long ago, with my mood, when I was something

Other than somber, melancholy, beaten down.

 

While they may see my eyes, burning intense eyes,

And they may see the bags, signs of a soul spread thin,

They do not see what wearies me, they do not see what ignites me.

 

If they came close enough to talk to me,

They would learn that I am no different from they.

I am flesh and blood, skin and bone,

I am a human being with feelings and passions.

 

They would learn that my passions are inflamed by injustice.

By the belief that a person being in a suit makes them better.

By the existence of my privilege, and inability to wash clean.

 

They would feel my exhaustion, radiating a latent dis-ease.

Exhausted from working, fighting, fucking, and friending,

From stressing to depressing, and a generalized lack of release,

From saving, from spending, of the cycle never ending.

 

Exhausted from planning and priming, and having to make poetry rhyming

From heartbreak and back ache, the labors of love and capital.

From subprime lending and rich rule bending, and all that corporate bling

From people living asleep, walking through the charnel house as cattle.

 

From far away when people see me,

They see a white man in a suit.

They see my brown hair, freckles,

And the bags under my brown eyes.

 

They don’t see that the man is the three piece suit,

Which looks flawless from a far, but is threadbare

Broken down, worn out, held together by love and hope.

Love for all beings, and hopeful for our future

 

They don’t see that my eyes yearn to change again.

On the horizon, seeing something other than oppression,

In my body, feeling something other than depression.

 

While they may see my eyes, inflamed by injustice,

And they see the bags, the signs of an endless struggle,

They do not struggle with me, they are merely coal.

PhotoPoem – Red & Black

Posted: November 23, 2013 in Art, History, Poetry, Politics
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In the stanza about Emma Goldman the word read is pronounced in the past tense (phonetically red), this is meant to be a play on words but I worry it may not read well.

Sup B (Anonymous)

Red and Black 

Red is the color of passion.

The kind of passion that spills onto the streets,

In a paroxysm of rage or a gush of blood,

The parting kiss of a billy club.

Black is no color, it is a shade.

We cloak ourselves in its cool shadows,

Covering swaddled black-blocked masses,

We stand united against the police state.

Read is what we have done to Emma Goldman,

To Marx, Kropotkin, and scores more.

Read is what they did not do to our letters and pamphlets,

Detached in towers of gilded ivory.

Black is what they will do to the images they dislike,

To the actions, thoughts and people too.

Black is what we cannot let happen to our memories,

They must be held for their crimes against life.

Red is the color of love.

The love for all beings united in struggle,

Even those not deserving of love.

We all suffer, we all face hardships.

Black is the refreshing shade of a desert oasis.

Sheltering all those who don its penumbral armor.

Even cops who dispense billy club kisses,

Stand strong in dark sunglasses, in funereal black.

Red and black are the color guard and shaded cloak of our people,

Find them wherever there is tyranny and rally to them.

PhotoPoem – Beauty Destroys

Posted: November 5, 2013 in Art, Poetry
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This is my first posting of what I am calling photo-poems, one of my photos paired with a poem to create a mood. This poem is about those couples who cease to exist as a pair of distinct individuals and fully collapse into one another, becoming a singular entity.  

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Collapse

Like two stars colliding,

Smash, we are a supernova baby.

Crushed so tightly together,

We occupy the same space and break physics.

You glowed so brightly off alone,

Even the moon wanted to steal your shine.

It took my white dwarf smile,

To rekindle your red giant heart.

Like two stars colliding,

Smash, things are all wrong.

We were meant to be companion stars,

Instead we accrete eachother’s matter.

I take on you, you take on me.

A-Ha! We come one and merge.

But physics won’t allow us exceed

Our own mass potentials.

Like two stars colliding,

Smash, we are a supernova baby.

Gone, our days as companions are

No longer two, but a singular star.

But when stars go supernova

You’re not guaranteed a nurturing explosion,

Which sends positive energy into the universe,

Sometimes a hole is left, an ugly black hole.

Sometimes when stars go supernova baby,

A big black hole is left where the love once was.

Sometimes when people go supernova baby,

They collapse into one another like two colliding stars.

They merge, co-mingle, and co-habitate.

In time Scott and Mandy become Scandy,

In time you lose your identity.

But who needs that when they have “love”?

After so long there is nothing left but a black hole,

Sucking in all potential futures, leaving just one.

I’ve never felt so hopeless than when you made me into a nova,

But somehow I broke your gravity, and I am still riding that shockwave.