Author: tiphane

What Will We Do About It?

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They say we replay forever in our mindsThe rules learned in the first six years of our livesThe mother of all mantras, like a broken recordImages of your first fearsSeen through your first tearsAdults standing byDeciding whether you will love or hateBe selfish or generousWithdrawn or outgoingA poet or a politicianObserving chaos or causing itAn innocent bystander or a perpetrator. Now we sit on the edge of chaosAnd the voices say, “do nothing, you cannot do anything about chaos, you don’t know how to deal with chaos.”Do we stand up, or submit? Crafty discourse rides on the mother of all mantras, expecting complacency and extinguishing all growth of conscience, as if we were six years old. This could be our collective ageA society unable to learnStuck in its fears and instinctsWhat will we do about it?

The Birth of a Neo-Expressionist Painting

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The Birth of a Neo-Expressionist Painting Memories clog the channels of the mind The fingers twitch from the need to paint Alerting sensations to the task. Eyes sit on the subject A mantra meditatively clearing ideas on a false start. A tentative dip in color An adroit skin tone begins In softness imagined, moisturized and hydrated. A dissonant vase made and cracked in a virtual world A nest in a corner of what could be love Unseen notes from a singing voice Floating to the suggested ears Give the body a frisson. A timely switch to a less dominant hand blends in A quasi medieval being massages the back, invisible Thrusting the body towards the viewer An unintended provocation. The painting is unfinished.

Gravity

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Gravity Trust gravity to keep your feet on the ground Looking down, you fail to see the attraction of the earth, of life on it, despite the many ants, ladybugs, tiny flowers, and micro-organisms busily mixing things up. Being a distinguished person, you don’t lean to better distinguish those elements of life, for fear of exposing a side of yourself other forms of life dislike. That is gravity. Fighting gravity keeps you out of the grave Until it lowers your eyelids Like the end of the day With the sun going down And the moon rising on the other side.

Your Peaceful Existence

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Your peaceful existence Comes in a colorful package that you buy And you become diffident of The no-name brands denouncing The dominant point of view That war is good, out there. In your package Comes educational material Justifying the building of weapons Under a veil of good morals and principles. Even you can shoot and kill Under the veil. No child is left behind All pledge allegiance All are given the freedom To shoot and kill And peace becomes the enemy, Driven out of the classroom, Arrested, suppressed. You pledged never to challenge The official view. You pledged never to question How many are killed in your name. You pledged never to look Outside your peaceful existence. There is no money to be made in peace. Aspiring peace leaders withdraw, Threatened of becoming martyrs, Their words distorted to rekindle the war effort. War leaders continue to get Airports, buildings, and freeways named for themselves. They continue to call peace the enemy. So, you say, war must be good, And looking the other way You return …

Self-Portrait, revised

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Is this better? Self-Portrait Every morning, facing the mirror You feel like Dorian Gray who saw in his portrait The old, consumed man he was supposed to be. You have seen it before, The image you try to project, Blending in time, growth, and decay. Every morning you have a routine You perform magic And transform yourself into What you want to be. Every morning you select From a wardrobe blessed by fashion The clothes that you need To make you part of your world. Years spent making yourself up And today your mask presses Uncomfortably against your nature. The leaks in your mind Wet the plaster Of your mask, and it crumbles. You can’t find yourself in a magazine. The lost identity never was yours. Today, you start a new portrait Incorporating strange features from a night filled with dreams. You need to slow down, to let the colors blend Allow for experimentation. Paint Your true self, one trait at a time, Sometimes over another you tried and disliked. You call it, work in …

Poetry read at sl4db: Self-Portrait

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A new feature of my blog: the poems I wrote for Spotlight for Dust Bunnies Monday nights. Yes, they usually are first drafts (or first and a half, or even second). One day all the revisions will magically appear. Self-Portrait Every morning you face the mirror And feel like Dorian Gray when he saw his portrait: The old, consumed man he was supposed to be. Why is it a shock? You have seen it before. Every morning you have a routine You perform magic And transform yourself into What you want to be. You select from your wardrobe The clothes that will give you the confidence You need to face the world. You spent years making yourself up And today you want out of your mask. Your mind is leaking, And your mask crumbles like wet plaster. You can’t find yourself in a fashion magazine. You have lost an identity that never was yours. You start to paint a new portrait Incorporating strange features. You need to slow down You need to learn, and allow …

The Daily Grind

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In the cavernous food court Of their office building The men in gray find their daily food For the half hour, perhaps a whole hour They allow for lunch Between a phone call and the filling of a form Calculating precisely how long the path is to retirement. On plastic trays, they put hamburgers or ham sandwiches The occasional fries also A bottle, of juice, sliding dangerously Threatening to spill the whole tray If not caught by a spasm of hunched shoulders. From plastic chairs attached to plastic tables They occupy their tired minds With a strategic view of a TV on the wall Playing something they will soon forget. A man in black, the word SECURITY on his back, Walks by Making sure, in his silence They are happy and undisturbed. Oh, how they long for retirement As they adjust mentally their calculation Glancing at their watches Dreaming of doing what they want The enjoyment of the rest of their lives In the tranquility of a well-furnished living-room Free to choose from the day’s …

I wish you

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I wish you… A life of discovery and wonder In total peace with yourself and others Disregarding the voices of discord and war Welcoming the voices of joy and friendship Exercising your right to demand That such a life be accessible to all. May you be the instrument of peace on earth.

The Golden Gate is a Metaphor

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Work in progress, part of something I intend to call “A San Francisco Odyssey” The Golden Gate Is a Metaphor The visitors said, We have come to seek the Golden Gate To climb Lincoln Boulevard On rented Blazing Saddles Filling our lungs with eucalyptus, To brave the wind, the fog, and the foghorn, The real cyclists and the other tourists zigzagging around us As we take pictures Of boats sailing underneath Coming for the promised gold. For the bridge isn’t, as promised, Golden, it is the Gate that is An opening, a passage Allowing the gold seekers to come and go. Now of course, they fly over it The captain tells them “there it is, folks” And they twist their stiffened necks To see the bridge Perhaps to compare it with a postcard, or a Ghirardelli chocolate wrapping, A view they had before Of it next to a cable car and Alcatraz And if their view were really warped Next to palm trees and snow. How many photographs, and paintings, How many imprints on retinas, …