A Revolution of Sorts

Every crisis invades our psyche. We are constantly reminded that we are not safe, that at any moment tragedy will happen to even the best people. We watch as innocence is destroyed and we raise our children in the midst of the devastation.

We have a media that wants us to act and a government that wants us to leave them to spend as much as they need or create what ever law they deem necessary and we need to enjoy the Internet, follow the Kardashians and surf on the best new IPhone.

There is a constant invasion of our well being. The sky has been falling ever since 911- we’ve been waiting for the dollar to crash, warned to save gold, water, or even back in Y2K to buy a shelter, grow our own food.

All of this media frenzy does well for many making fortunes on the impending struggles we as Americans face. The media loves their high ratings as we sit foaming at the television afraid of the next impending disaster.

The unit that would usually give us strength and security has dissolved out before we even realized we needed them. The community, family, close friends all have been replaced with a collective, heavily connected community that has replaced true emotion and connection with hype and fanfare.

I think it is time we as Americans start to regroup-they’re not going to suggest it for us. They have better things they want from us like votes, ratings and control of everything from our health care to our energy consumption.

We need to start betting on us and our communities,  instead of the mouthpieces in Washington and those media yelling fire in our crowded elevator communities.

We need to start thinking for ourselves and our families. Turn off the television, start playing board games, the evil and tragedies may find us but all we do waiting for them is waste the precious time we have.

It’s time for a revolution of sorts, where we as people start taking responsibility for ourselves, our children, our schools. We need to start living smaller but enjoy more of what we have.

We need to start building a shield one that instead of protects our borders or our ozone layer, one that protect our families and our communities from fear, either justified or amplified by agenda.

We need to start living more significant lives and instead of worrying about changing the world, why don’t we try to change the little world that surrounds us, treat our neighbors better, interact with each other more and share with each other, let’s just pretend for the next year, there is hope and we are in control of anything we need to change.

A Field

You’ve watched the black turn to green

You’ve watched the struggles of lives

between

June to July

And December

Did you keep a journal

Will you still remember

This was your life

You pray for another season

That you might get it right

One more try

To watch as yellow turns to black

And black back to green

You’ve watched the beauty

And the violence everyday

Did you pick a flower

Struggle with a thorn

I wish you all the pain

You could afford

A field with lessons

Without words

That a life could be explained

In one season

That we would not take for granted

The next

The sunflowers now closing their eyes

The field, a corpse, a swarm of flies

The summer heat

The winter chill

Do you remember the year

And all its lessons

Where were you at the start?

At the end?

Wouldn’t you love just one more year

just to Try it again

Portrait of a Son

This portrait I will never sign, it was never mine. Even though the colors are familiar and the strokes are uniquely a piece of me, I have barely laid a brush on the canvas. In fact, more of my flaws you will see than any of my strengths.

I have stood in awe, as this work became itself. I have not even the slightest knowledge nor understanding of the medium and yet I welcomed the idea of creating it, a small piece of the artist is that which is created as just a whisper, not too much detail and yet enough to clarify the artists vision.

In this particular work, I must admit the painting has taught me more than I could ever explain. Now as it becomes theirs’, a work that will be shared with the world, I seem to be more clueless than ever before.

I can’t articulate the purpose or vision; it is so far beyond the comprehension of a mere artist. The strokes I have taken in recent seem more discordant than ever, it seems I can only damage the canvas and being an artist and a creative person seems more like a detriment than a virtue.

I am clumsy, my colors are unsure and even worse than all of this, I am quickly becoming irrelevant,  yet the finishing touches beg for my attention. I keep my distance, I need to these days because the closer I get to perfecting the masterpiece, the more I realize it has nothing to do with me and it is not mine. So I won’t be signing this canvas, I wont be taking a bow to the audience no more than I could stand in judgment of my lack of skill-the painting has become itself, I have been barely present and yet the lack of myself has meant everything in its creation.

I won’t sign this work, I will leave it to the audience to decide and they will finish it. They will never see the beauty I see, nor understand its amazing virtue-only I can see this and my deep love for it has made me the worst critic. 

I can only judge myself in its shadow and I never come up as nothing but a hack painter, a novice, a word smith without words to describe… so this painting, this beautiful amazing painting will never be signed.

Prison of Darkness

September

Each name is abrasive to my ear

Each repetition of tone

each common name

A tree of ethnicity,

bleeding from its roots

words that cut like razors

Can not offer any glimmer of peace

To families

The sad privilege to recite

The somber eyes and the perfect quote

Seem pointless

For the empty air above us

Even now they’re sweeping the street

And taking down signs

The scar, the building, a sore

That never heals

We ring our hands in crowds

We wait for our moment

They live without

A child that will never know her dad

A mother that will never watch their son

Marry

Buried on that horrible day

Where one moment America united

On the precipice of pure evil

And we see ourselves as people

A nation under assault

United we stand

Shoulder to shoulder

They recite the names

We will be stronger, resolute

But never the same…

All the sea creatures agreed to coexist....that is except the shrimp, for some reason he wasn't having it!

The Exquisite Garden: a prelude

This is a new series of poetry it will be complete with photographs of the garden as well as paintings. The premise of this collection is the idea of a garden, it has been the escape that I needed during darker times and it is symbolic of how I see life. There are many regular plants that I plant every year and they all have some sort of symbolic significance. The reason I started gardening in the first place was to attract wildlife, than it was to learn for the subjects in my painting and finally it was for peace and calm. Nature has always been a significant  part of my creativity and this is the culmination of the experiences that surround a gardener soothed and haunted by nature.

I will create a final post and most likely a self published book the near future when it is complete.

Bird song 1

I love the sound of the wren

It sings

Literally,

Excited swirls of notes from high to low

And back

Barely seen

The streaming tones

Through deep green leaves

Constant

Emphatic

Determined

But still

The mourning dove

Keeps me still

Keeps me remembering

The sadness

The end of summer

Calm and pensive

Unshakable

It doesn’t sing

It hums

Much like the cicada

Much like the breath of a late summer day

But I seek out the wren

I seek out its beautiful sound

in hope that it will…sing again

An Absence

I was feeling absence beneath the shadows

Of trees

I was barely a presence

Among the dragonflies

And flies

Buzzing

I was barely flesh, barely bone

Nothing

Amidst the primevial moment

Where the garden became

Its’ tender

Out of my reach

The dying leaves

The starving thirsting

Stems

Bend and meet the ground

I can’t save them

I can barely walk

In the stagnant heat

And all my expectations

Seem like rain

In late August heat

Pointless

The gardener

With hands so hopeful

Now watch the harvest

Become

Despite his careful tending

Wilting buds

And rotten plums

The flies take everything

Nothing goes to waste

But I was hoping, perhaps ideally

For just one more taste

Shrike

Hopes that I might not hang on that perilous steel,

The thorn

Borrowed from the fence row

He cleans the field

Death is all around us

In the grasses

Beneath the clouds

Hope that I might never go to waste

The long steel ropes

Across the field

Keeps my eyes to the ground

Quiet among the things that do not speak

Keep us close to the ground

And never make a sound

Keep us tight to the thorn

Waiting

Devoured by this oppressive summer day

Exhausted the breath

The embrace of a silver thorn

Hope that I might not be a casualty

That my life should mean something more…

Passionvine in Bloom

The passionvine entwines

The fence

Hope it reminds me

Why I’m here

The perilous stamens

The sweet mystique

A flower that barely blooms

But can not hide its fragrance

Hope that autumn is coming soon

Sleep silent in the ground

Roots remembering its beauty

Waiting for the next summer day

That it might once again

Be seen

That way

Cassia Alata

The candlestick plant

A light but no flame

Rise out of the ground

To fall again

When the ground is frozen

Leaving seeds

Just memories

To barter in the spring

So much work to grow these amazing spires

Rise and meet the heat of a summer day

No reluctance

For suffering

No penance beneath the stagnant air

No water

No special attention

Look next summer when there’s nothing left to save

Again

The seed will find its way

A candle in the darkness

A beautiful yellow light, 

its only flame

All words, photographs and paintings in this post- copyright by Art by Gordon  2015