art

Currents of Love and Hate

An incredibly creative and skilled friend wrote to me this morning:

Some days I feel like
A hollow shell of talent.
Nothing to show but
Phenomenal works of drawing
To make the world believe
I have it all figured out.

Still barely woken, I had no quick response. I told her that I know what I wanted to say, just not how to articulate it. Told her to expect a poem sometime later tonight. Fortunately, my pen began to hit paper during my commute into work. Here’s my response:

For every breath in
Is followed by an exhale out
Much like confidence
There is no escape from doubt
But know you’re not alone
In trying to make sense of the unknown
For history has shown
There are currents that direct us
Flows of love and hate that build and wreck us
Each new moment, a blank canvas
An opportunity matched with responsibility
To share the Love with respect and dignity
A touch of humility
As you capture the hearts and minds
Of those in your vicinity
With pen in hand
Imagination is how you break free
And you already know it wont be easy

So let go of the illusion
That it will all make sense
Believe that your heart can and will
Reflect onto life’s canvas
That there’s no way to fully plan this

But we can create
Choose to make today great
Open the eyes to those still in a state
Of disillusionment
That their life is more than a passing moment
Your talent is incredible
Raise your chin and own it
Hold on to these emotions
By putting things in motion

For with your art, you express not your understanding
But rather, your imagination in a world of  your planning

I’m quite fortunate to have a friend in which I get to communicate via poem.

If you like coffee-cup art like this, then totally check out more of her work at:
tumblr: Java Doodles
Facebook: Java Doodles

 

 

You, too, grew!

As the seasons pass
Like they did ages ago
Are we closer now
To identifying a soul?

As a Human race
Are we more lost
Or in control?

As we can see the roles we have to play
Look in the mirror to see the hands that shape this day

Create!
Bring your work to life
Regardless the truth
I feel this is right
Using emotions and lyrical obsessions
To set life into motion, on this spherical setting
Aware of my limited blessing
Working against time to spread this message:
Life can hurt if you let it
But it’s absurd to live with your head in the dirt

It’s easier to feel as if life is against you
That no matter your actions
You only add more fuel
To the fires that threaten your deepest desires
Stress after stress only work like multipliers
Compounding pain into something more than just deal with
Change mandatory when a mindset’s stuck reeling
And at this very moment, being weaker looks appealing

But stop, breathe
Start to believe
That you already made the choice
To grow and achieve

This moment has renewed
You are more than just you
Believe that this is true
That like plants out in the sun,
You, too, grew!

So stop, breathe
Start to believe
That you already made the choice
To grow and achieve

Though time will move forward
Regardless your choice
Know that I look forward to your work
So that together, we’ll rejoice!

—

Eva the Weaver – Better late than never

 

Woah

That moment when you realize every human being that you pass is also a system comprised of organs comprised of cells comprised of molecules comprised of atoms on a planet zooming around a star that is zooming around a black hole in a galaxy that is one of uncountable galaxies. I’m communicating to you through the ones and zeroes that make up the fabric of modern technology. Transmitting wifi through air to travel incredible distances culminating at your device which translates electricity into pixels that produce this text.

Everything and nothing of existence beautifully intertwined into wondrous polarity of
The in and the out
The big and the small
The self and the other
The atom and the galaxy

A universe aware
A moment to breathe
My verse to share
One for you to read

—

Image: Luis Argerich – The Orion Nebula

Uneasy Pause

“We are paused by the train’s dispatcher”
Stuck in traffic and just want to move faster
Keep up the pace
In the race we call life
Uneasiness takes over in the calmness of the night
Who’s right?
When so many people are coming up with answers
Conflicting ideologies just there to raise and stir
Anger and mistrust among like-bodied people
Still parts of the world where voicing thoughts remain illegal
Masses ruled by the regal
Say of few
Those at the top creating all the rules
With nothing to lose but billion dollar pools
Who view others as inhuman
Like a separate class of mules
Disregarding love and failing to resume it
Guilt-free use of slaves for monetary consuming
Danger looming
At the edifice of time
Angers fueling
Like a mine
Waiting for the trigger
Of a footstep, misstep
A moment to release death
When progress was so real now it feels deflected
Is it too late, or can we redirect it?
Has the ship to a better world sailed off into the distance?
Perhaps from a linear frame of mind
We might have just missed it

—

I wrote this during my morning commute into work. As you may have guessed, the train was stopped and the line that those in NYC have heard many a time became the start of today’s new rhyme.

Anything

You don’t have to be
Anything at all
No, you don’t need to be defined
By linguistically painted walls
Of adjectives
And sentences
That start with: “Oh yeah, That he is!”
No you don’t have to be anything at all

Wise and bright like a shining light
Are fancy ways to bring delight
To egos all around the world tonight

But the time and space that’s in between
The words that you so truly mean
Could never paint the picture
Of the ever finished idea of me

—-

Unlike the majority of my poems, this one originated vocally rather than mentally. The house was empty so I started singing out loud. Eventually, something rhymed enough that I sat down to work on it. I find it crazy how easily time just evaporates when my mind is in the middle of constructing these rhymes. The last 40 minutes of writing this out felt like mere seconds.

 

And So I Write

One step at a time
Pen in hand
Using paper as an extension of mind
Working through a tension to find
The balance between
Uncontrolled thought
The source of creativity
And the sense of distraught
Aware of Earth’s calamities
Genocide of humanities
Dangers running rampantly
That we can’t handle if we disagree

A heart desensitized from frantically
Following headlines religiously
From famine and disease
To consistent atrocities
We’re far from a stability
Cause when you look at history
Its stained with blood and misery
Seems like such a mystery
How any progress has been made
In the face of such disdain
For human life, both day and night
A thirst for power fuels the urge to fight

While I sit here hopelessly
Facing the fact that now I’m aware
And feeling pretty jaded
With an underlying hatred
And an ever present sense of dread
That soon enough I’ll end up dead
Wonder what’s the point of pressing
This pen to paper
And then I remember
I’m not alone
There’s still parts of humanity
That, Oh! have ever flown
A brightness shown
Through blackest night
That our hearts can grow
Art’s worth the fight
A responsibility shared
To spread the light
And for these reasons I find the might
To think it through with the urge to write

Aflame


Aflame now
Time to inspire
The inner fire
No longer afraid of giving up
The shows can wait
Put the games on pause
The dreams are here and will move on
I refuse to stop and drop
This chance to prove my ability
Improve reality
Intentionally
I wish to see
To speak of a prophecy
Turn it into history
These actions aren’t a mystery
Just tools to me
Absent of misery
With my hands working along with me
A mind and heart as one
Working together
A universe before me
Lay unseen opportunity
Now’s the time to grasp it
We’re all headed for the same casket
Death around the corner
There’s no way to mask it
Released from doubt
It’s time to look past it
Cause I’m not alone
Friends by my side
And a team in tow
Until I die
I choose to grow

—

Image Attribution (CC): Alesa Dam – Candle Light

Amidst Thinnest Air

Stop and think
The quest for truth is not worth your youth
There is no shop
No magical mystic’s booth
To tell you that one plus two is three, definitively
These are cognitive patterns
One in which we all agree

A chair is a chair
Merely a symbol that connects a sound with what’s there
In a mind reconstructing imagery out of thinnest air
We find a misery deep in despair
When we try to link the sound of happiness
With meaning that’s shared
Facing a disconnect
Between our dreams and where
We are currently
Finding it hard to believe
That love has not been lost
That our soul can be freed

But now stop, you see
For you’ve just condemned yourself preemptively
So I ask you not to worry about finding the truth
For in life there won’t be a simple solution
Instead, a complex polarity brought into fusion
Perplexed momentarily in constant confusion
Let go of full understanding, the darkest illusion
Point your sails forward, and keep on moving
For though the truth will never be known
The quest to reach it can be quite amusing

Art * Time = Feelings

A new track
A new canvas
A new animation
A new poem

The first bar
The first line
The first frame
The first rhyme

Time
Time
Time
Time

A melody formed
A background grown
A motion stirred
A thought shown

Time
Time
Time
Time

A song to share
Is one to hear

And a painting done
Is for the see-er

A short clip exists
Ever so briefly
To simply show off
The result of one’s dreaming

And here’s my arrangements of words in a row
Sharing my thinking, just so you’ll know

 

 

Video

Cry out for Optimism

At times when I feel emotionally caught up, my mind starts thinking in rhymes. A good friend recently advised doing this kind of writing again to help me out. By the time I finished working on it, I had already felt a lot better :).

Find the lyrics below

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