Poems and Pictures

my opinion on the matter

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:16:00 -0400

FUCK, ALL OF IT.

Years ago if you asked me about the American dream I’d say I’m looking at it. 4 walls around me adorned with loved ones and achievements a bubble of false securities, just waiting, unprepared to wake up from beneath the flowers.

Like a kid with no training wheels on his first ride, taking stories for fact

The economy moves in cycles. Politics moves in cycles. Don’t worry about the hard times because all you have to do is keep cycling. Peddle right into the jaws of that great white system, unsafe for even white men unless they’re “great” and every great white man I’ve ever known is a shark.

So don’t be surprised when even you get bit you see

You see not me though. I’ve learned to swim IN the system gonna tear it apart from the inside out like every public defense attorney who helps black men spend their fair time in prison, or every public school teacher who learns Spanish so they can baby sit in L.A., have you taken your prison prep classes yet? Not me though. I’m gonna be the President, stand up tall and address my country trying not to wince as the grip around my decisions gets tighter with every truth I twist. Let’s devote our time and money to science so we can tweet about how poor we are on our iPhones, the ironic part is that we’re actually poor. Sold vessels to society the further we go the farther we are from ourselves, and each other, ironically, society. So let’s focus on the NEXT trending topic in the NEXT country so the NEXT time someone signs their life away to a bank, we can remember that it’s ok. That’s just the way life is.

Deadline to deadline

Either resume or resign

Deadline to deadline

Resume, or resign. For every person up there that cares there are ten who could care less, so I ask you, why?

Maybe you didn’t hear me pleading from behind the one-way glass

Every hope I had for any idea of a future in your hands, ashed like the cigarettes you chain smoke.

No, maybe you just couldn’t see me from up there

From your office your penthouse your plan had no room for me

No room for us on your monopoly board so we become commodities. Zombies thanking you for your distractions, it’s 2012 and I’ve never even read of so many slaves. A disjointed union with no need for a leader because that’s how all this started in the first place. No? Let’s revolt so we can start over and be happy just until we’re ready for another revolution! Didn’t make sense to me either but rolls so easy off the tongues of the privileged. It’s easy to go all in when your pockets are overflowing or empty. Tongues that tell you if you do the wrong things the right way, you too can speak smoothly and watch these cycles turn in your favor. And you know what, they’re right.

So look over at your neighbor and see if you can watch the greed in their eyes the self interest and clan based motives as you dig holes for each others’ children. Look at them and say you can’t afford a revolution let alone a change of mind. Now go get a job, and with every paycheck you get, look at back at your neighbor doing the same thing so you never forget why you can’t change first.

artruby: Mark Jenkins in Richmond, VA

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:14:11 -0400

artruby:

Mark Jenkins in Richmond, VA

celestialview: A few more days and green all over

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:09:48 -0400

celestialview:

A few more days and green all over

marianaconte: The Tire Art of Wim Delvoye Find out more about...

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:03:06 -0400

marianaconte:

The Tire Art of Wim Delvoye

Find out more about Wim’s work here

Photo

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:02:27 -0400

thisismyseriousblog: It is simply a skull

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:55:39 -0400

thisismyseriousblog:

It is simply a skull

actegratuit: - impatience with time - until the last drop Bjorn...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:50:56 -0400

actegratuit:

- impatience with time

- until the last drop

Bjorn Richter

Back Home

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:46:38 -0400

When i was little i would go out and play basketball after eating dinner with my family. Kitfo injera weighing me down like stomached bricks of a home left behind; reminders of a history immigrated. But i didnt know, i thought i was just chubby. Fattened by kibbay from earth treaded by warriors of generations from now to the time of Solomon.

Queen Sheba is my grandmother and here I thought a green card meant she was a second class citizen. I was ashamed of the way she spoke as she made me white rice and sugar for dinner, lieing about the next parent teacher conference because I didn’t want my teacher to think my family was dumb. For a straight A student, God I was dumb.

In highschool I was proud to be different because all the other black kids were “just black”, they couldn’t go “back home” like my mother would call it. This place where honey didnt form in hives but flowed in rivers. And even as they looked back at it through rosy glasses i could only look forward and see this light. Cuz the closest i had ever been was in my mothers womb and little did i know then that i wouldnt be back for over 20 years. 20 years spent claiming a history i thought I knew, how stupid of me to think anybody could know a history like that. To think anybody who scribbles their name in an area of the sky knows any more about the sky than the stars do is sadly mistaken. You see those stars may be long gone but that light you see is so you never forget how greatly they shined. How awesome they were, how long ago it was when they looked up to a blank sky and decided to scribble their names. Direct descendants of kings before Christ and incarnations of his angels continue to breed a history as expansive as the sky.

And here i stand 7,153.5 miles away, closer than ive ever been. Knowing no matter how many greek calendar easters i celebrate or green yellow red things i buy, African is a state of mind. A place of beauty you have to see to understand so don’t ask me about it. But know that what makes me African is not merely blood, but respect, love, and longing for that place back home. That culture and history as thick as the wot my grandmother stirs in the kitchen.

Today i walk around with kitfo injera in my stomache. Still pretty chubby but no longer weighed down you see those bricks are now in my hand weapons of construction that i use to build for myself a castle. Fit for King Solomon, inhabited by the son of Haile Selassie but you see it’s portable. And right now it’s in America. Still guarded by the Lion of Judah I have rastafarians playing in my back yard Europeans and Asians in my living room and in my kitchen are pots from every corner of Africa brewing the same beer that fed the slaves who built the pyramids. And on the corner stone of my castle there’s an inscription written in Ge’ez with english subscript. It says…”Welcome home.”

Photo

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:43:21 -0400

just how i’ve felt all year.

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:38:43 -0400

just how i’ve felt all year.

Valentines Day

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:32:04 -0500

I gave her my heart in the shape of chocolates. She gave me a pink rose with no thorns. I feared it wouldn’t be enough. She feared it would wilt.

Slam

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:45:00 -0500

And then I saw God in the eyes of a prostitute

I wanted to trace the geography of her countenance

her presence like that of heaven in a silhouette

they told me never to give up

and just when I thought the searing pain of your stare on my conscience was gone

you struck like a trident in the sea of my thoughts

never again was I whole

like every black woman to ever be called beautiful

a slave master I became with the chain around my own neck

please yank it before I run out of time said the host

and scene.

The Afternoon, 2000, by Megan Roodenrys

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:41:54 -0500

The Afternoon, 2000, by Megan Roodenrys

ilovecharts: Artists’ hierarchy of needs -silusmouse

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:28:51 -0500

ilovecharts:

Artists’ hierarchy of needs

-silusmouse

Joy

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 06:57:00 -0500

i feel, forgotten.

i feel, worn.

i feel used up and dismissed

i feel let go.

let go and forgotten

like, your favorite thing as kid your favorite item or toy or what have you

like that thing you took everywhere and showed everyone

because it was the best part of your life

and even with all the actual love from your actual friends and family,

there was something about that thing that you just didn’t want to live without

you remember that security in your toy car as you hop in and drive across broken counter tops, peeled up walls and dirty carpet floors. you didn’t care because in that car there were no problems getting anywhere

you remember the tiara you put on or that cape you tied around your neck when you weren’t feeling special, when you were feeling special, when you had no reason at all because you remember when you didn’t have to have a reason to smile. You smiled because you could. Because you had me.

i know you remember me.

i know you didn’t ask to grow up

i know this life we’re given is sometimes thrown at us instead of handed,

and i know that not much ever seems fair anymore

but also, i know you know, that life was always better with me.

so why would you let go? why would you forget?

i kept you smiling in Somalia when it seemed you’d rather be dying the way you were than die like those around you

I was there in Brazil when the National soccer team came to visit you at the hospital

they were like gods to you and you were enamored even when it seemed that God wasn’t likely to pay a visit

i was with you in New York City, at home, when you saw your child smile for the first time since diagnosis and you might not know this but every time he reached it was because he saw me in you and he knew, that that was all he need

And i am here, now, where i feel like you need to remember me, and reach for me.

seize me.

Scripture says “Therefore with joy will you draw water from the wells of salvation”!

wells of peace, and love, that i dwell in

like magic bottled in a lamp of your own will

i need only to be beckoned

only to be allowed in to your moment.

You see unlike a disease that needs you, you need me and yet i’ll leave if you let me

so don’t.

friends, family, lovers can love you

drugs, faith, time can affect you

but i am of your own right

a power, a liberty not to be forsaken

no matter the bleakness of your situation

whether you’re meant to go now or later, for the time being

i am your salvation.

so hold on to me

And save yourself

Photo

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 06:54:40 -0500

World AIDS Day Around The Globe (PHOTOS)

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 06:42:19 -0500

World AIDS Day Around The Globe (PHOTOS) :

Across the globe, people are gathering to unite in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

From human red ribbon formations in Taipei, to “I Wear A Condom” flash mobs in Bucharest, see how the world is creating awareness.

Photo

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:25:01 -0500

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:56:54 -0500

Marie Findlay

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:31:29 -0500

Marie Findlay