Your words lose meaning as you type them. Figures take to shape and dissipate as you describe them. Loose fingers type vague meanings, expression is a gimp in a cheap suit sitting at a bus stop waiting on a bus that may never come. Little girls run screaming by their blonde hair in pigtails, geared up in soccer uniforms. They are infernos of prepubescent longings. Their screams shrill against the static sidewalk scene. A pigeon lands and picks at a piece of liter in the gutter. A larger pigeon lands next to the first and begins to pick out the eye of the first pigeon. The pecking order in plain sight. The bus arrives out of nowhere and runs over both pigeons. The gimp remains seated on the bench. He ain’t got no money no ticket no rhyme, he ain’t going anywhere. The bus rides by, trailing pigeon feathers in its exhaust. The little girls scream again and the gimp in the cheap suit stands up to salute the dead scavengers. Across the street in the McDonalds parking lot an American Flag the size of a small Eastern European country sways in the breeze. The line for the drive through stretches back into the street. A serepentine line of mini-vans and SUVs gleam freshly cleaned in the early evening sun. There is handgun in the glove compartment of more than one of the mini-vans and SUV’s, it’s a suburban Russian roulette waiting to be played. God is in the ketchup and mustard stains smeared upon soccer uniforms. Happy meals sedate screaming children better than Prozac. Jesus supports more than one of the families dining alfresco. These are people who allow bumper stickers to speak for them. Too wealthy or too fat for t-shirt slogans, some may suppose. The gimp across the street smiles into the setting sun and sits back down upon the bus stop bench; as Minivans and SUVs screech out of fast food parking lots and carry microwaved nuclear familys home to the soft glow of Glee.
Waiting ain’t a waste of time when you ain’t got no where to go, says the gimp. Neither is writing about nothing, when writing about nothing is better than waiting on inspiration to show, says the writer.
woensdag 20 april 2011
maandag 11 april 2011
The show must go on even as the ghetto rages in flame.
Last week the founder of the Jenin Freedom Theater, Mer Khamis was murdered outside the theater. Another sad day in an ever saddening situation between Israel and Palestine. This poem is in memorial to him.
The show must go on even as the ghetto rages in flame.
A cold blooded murder
in the heated sand strewn streets of
Jenin
An execution in front of the affirming doors
of the Freedom Theater.
God was a blind eyed nonpaying
Member of the audience that day,
Seemingly a critic of his own creation,
It was said that he left after the first
and only act,
Which portrayed the slaying of
a proud man
who had breathed
and now bled,
struggling through a divided life
with only one want
one artistic vision
to produce peace upon a ghetto stage.
By pursuing freedom,
through
the release of creation,
the liberation of performance
the safety and sanity of the theater
as a relief from the chaos
and out of control insanity
of the daily drama portrayed
beyond the theater doors.
Bullet holes lashed his body
Like misplaced dialogue that
Had lost control its tongue.
His body heaved and sighed
a last bow
a creators struggled final breath
as violence conducted
its very own curtain call.
And like so many biblical images
of rivers,
The murderer ran away, red
Through raped streets filled with chaos and shame
Through scarred slums where creation cries
Itself to sleep each night
and where passion is seen as a pariah
by the political fanatics
And the occupying state.
The artist’s body ruined sagged
and slumped over in the auto, dead.
A man finally free from dogma,
slain at the footsteps
of the foundation
of his very own hopes and dreams.
What was once a place established
for a frustrated forgotten people
to pursue peace through portrayal
was now where mayhem
had become the main attraction
on the marquee
standing dead center stage
a theater of pain,
where the creators heart will always be present
but the houselights will never
shine so bright again.
thanks to Poetry 24 blogsite for first publishing this poem. http://poetry-24.blogspot.com/
The show must go on even as the ghetto rages in flame.
A cold blooded murder
in the heated sand strewn streets of
Jenin
An execution in front of the affirming doors
of the Freedom Theater.
God was a blind eyed nonpaying
Member of the audience that day,
Seemingly a critic of his own creation,
It was said that he left after the first
and only act,
Which portrayed the slaying of
a proud man
who had breathed
and now bled,
struggling through a divided life
with only one want
one artistic vision
to produce peace upon a ghetto stage.
By pursuing freedom,
through
the release of creation,
the liberation of performance
the safety and sanity of the theater
as a relief from the chaos
and out of control insanity
of the daily drama portrayed
beyond the theater doors.
Bullet holes lashed his body
Like misplaced dialogue that
Had lost control its tongue.
His body heaved and sighed
a last bow
a creators struggled final breath
as violence conducted
its very own curtain call.
And like so many biblical images
of rivers,
The murderer ran away, red
Through raped streets filled with chaos and shame
Through scarred slums where creation cries
Itself to sleep each night
and where passion is seen as a pariah
by the political fanatics
And the occupying state.
The artist’s body ruined sagged
and slumped over in the auto, dead.
A man finally free from dogma,
slain at the footsteps
of the foundation
of his very own hopes and dreams.
What was once a place established
for a frustrated forgotten people
to pursue peace through portrayal
was now where mayhem
had become the main attraction
on the marquee
standing dead center stage
a theater of pain,
where the creators heart will always be present
but the houselights will never
shine so bright again.
thanks to Poetry 24 blogsite for first publishing this poem. http://poetry-24.blogspot.com/
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