Final Scene from "The Chains"

This is the stage interpretation of "Let My People Go,"a spoken word poem that concluded Muse Creative Arts Ministry's production of "The Chains" a couple of weeks ago.

The combination of this piece and the monologue right before was incredibly powerful. The man on his knees as the piece starts is portraying Spartacus, the former gladiator turned slave revolt leader who delivers his speech to us from the cold shores of the river Styx--from death.

Originally, we were planning on ending on a somewhat positive note, saying "even if you fail to break free from the chains that bind you, all that matters is that you try." My co-director (also the actor playing Spartacus) suggested a better idea:

"If you try alone, you will fail. And failure sucks."

That's a direct quote.

This Is Art: Yom Kippur Poetry

The following piece of spoken word poetry is "Hebrew Mamita" by Vanessa Hidary. I have to admit that I wasn't planning on posting anything specific in honor of Yom Kippur, one of the holiest of Hebrew holy days. I wasn't expecting to feel so compelled to share something beautiful about this beautiful day appointed by God to usher in atonement for sin and sin nature.

The decision to post "Hebrew Mamita" on my art and lifestyle blog came after a spontaneous visit to an informational event sponsored by our campus's chapter of CUFI (Christians United For Israel). A good friend of ours who is now Josh's coworker is the vice president of CUFI here at Roberts, and we went to support him.

I was so glad that we decided to attend what turned out to be an (admittedly long) message about the human need for atonement and the ways that different people seek to achieve it. I could be wrong, but the "Hebrew Mamita" seems to be one way that Jewish Vanessa Hidary attempts to atone for the sins done to her people still today by the ignorance of the popular culture.

So much power--religious, political, personal, etc.--can be communicated through art.

The Thing About Computers, A Poem

This poem is a work in progress that came to me rather fluidly, stream-of-consciousness style. It sounds very "rantish," but still very artistic and eloquent. It might make a nice spoken word poem.

The Thing About Computers

The thing about computers

Is that they make it too easy

It being art, of course, and art being life

The miscommunication occurred between cursors and paintbrushes,

Servers and stereos, search engines and hard-bound books

Someone decided that internet access equals ingenuity
And you and I genuinely believe
Because we want to be that genius

The thing about computers

Is that clattering sonatas and lexical symphonies

Can spill from sadly unskilled fingertips

Onto unsuspecting keyboards kissed by amateur prints

Pinkies and thumbs transformed into instruments fine-tuned for use

On the most unwieldy of weapons

Perhaps it’s this knowledge that without our touch

Not a character dares shows its face on the digital page

That makes us feel like typing virtuosos in spite of our

Oafish hen-pecking at x, c, and the left-pointing caret keys

But in the deluge of tap-dancing digits

Pit-patting on the space bar and tabbing to a five-point indent

We lose the intent to type something worth saying at all
Will they "follow?" Will they "like" it?
Will you lead them into battle with your lion's heart
So strong they know they'll never be the same?
Skip that last part
At least they know your name

The thing about computers

Is that this information superhighway

Moves faster than a galactic hitchhiker

Reaching for the stars like you are every time

You sit across the table from Google and YouTube

Grasping at their plates with grubby fingers

For scraps of facts you never even knew you needed to know

But too fast to smell the fresh-cut grass of that pasture you passed

On the left a while back

Too fast to keep your eye on the horizon

Knowing that every mile on the speedometer

Brings you one step closer to capturing that distant sun

With your camera phone and abruptly Instagramming it

Into a dingy existence in the presence of a vintage photo filter

Forget about the comforting crackle that keeps you company

On the acre-long hunts for FM radio stations between gas stations


The thing about computers
Is that they can do more than we ever could
But the basic good which we assume
Perfumes the perceptions of engineers and authors
Who father the codes and man the programs
Is missing from the motherboards 
Populating worlds of data
With method instead of morality
Efficiency, not faith
Not heart enough to stave off hate

The thing about computers

Is they are only as good as the hand that guides them
And the hand guiding them
Is mine

Neil Gaiman "For Amanda, An Appreciation After Christopher Smart, Sort Of"

**READER ADVISORY** There is an instance of (censored) strong language some will find objectionable in the poem included in this post.

The purpose of this post is no doubt a bit unique.

I would first like to shed some light for the currently oblivious crowd of lit-lovers who have yet to make his acquaintance to the off-beat and infinitely charming Neil Gaiman. Gaiman is a poet, novelist, writer of short stories and non-fictional musings, lover, fighter, dreamer, and magic-maker--not to mention the fact that he is British and has one of the most delicious accents imaginable. His creative mind is wild and limitless but at the same time controlled, collected, and narrated in a level and soothing tone of voice that no one can quite duplicate.

I recently watched all of the YouTube videos recorded at the "Ninja Gig" of Amanda Palmer, Gaiman's musician wife, at Good Records in Dallas this April. To my delight, Gaiman decided, as he often does, to humbly read a few of his favorite poems, one of which had recently been written about his beloved wife.

All of the poems we beautifully written and even more beautifully read. I cannot recommend enough "The Day the Saucers Came." Make sure you listen to Gaiman recite it rather than just reading it for yourself. It really makes all the difference. The thing that struck me the most, however, was that in my fandom I had never yet discovered the following poem dedicated to Amanda Palmer and that scouring Google didn't turn up any text versions of this beautiful work. All I seemed to find were video recitations.

Well, for those who come behind me, I leave you this, the written version of Gaiman's "For Amanda," that you may pour over it's beauty and sweetness over and over again. Keep in mind that poems written specifically for performance can vary from reading to reading and that many words in this particular piece may be different in other versions available online.

For Amanda, An Appreciation After Christopher Smart, Sort Of

by Neil Gaiman

For I shall enumerate my lady’s charms although they are numberless.

For firstly, she has a smile like a beam of sunlight breaking through a cloud in a medieval painting.

For secondly, she moves like cats and panthers, and also she can stand still.

For thirdly, she has eyes of a color that no two people can agree on which I remember when I close my eyes.

For fourthly, she laughs at my jokes, sings unconcerned on the sidewalk, and gives money to buskers as a religious act.

For fifthly, she f*cks like wild cats and thunderstorms.

For sixthly, her kisses are gentle.

For seventhly, I would follow her or walk behind her or in front of her wherever she wished to go, and being with her would ease my mind.

For eighthly, I dream of her and am comforted.

For ninthly, there is no one like her, not that I’ve ever met, and I’ve met so many people, no one at all.

For tenthly, she squeals when I say “wastepaper basket,” and also in the morning, eyebrowless and waking, she always looks so perfectly surprised.

High on Avila, a Poem

 High on Avila

Maybe the altitude is getting to me
Or maybe there’s a little more than smoke in the fumes
Of ancianos forming clumps along the cobblestoned streets
Canes and furs and a refusal to freeze
Having grand old times with their whiskeys and wines
While I climb the winding way up between the moon
And the buildings lacking elbow room
But possessing an excess of tombs (like mine)
Tiny and always for rent

They say that nothing happens here

Then what’s happening to me
When this tree with bronze branches and fiery flowers
Is a lamppost—the same one that’s been here for hours
Pointing my way back to the bug jar where lights flicker
For hours and hours after they’ve gone out

I’ve gone out
And I haven’t found my way back home
Though I’ve known the winsome, lonesome road
More closely than it knows its spouse
I’ve known the hostel of a house
And loved each poorly heated nook
Each leaking hole and ancient tile
Each smile and stiff, unopened book
Cacique and Coke can’t hide the truth
The other ruthless spirits might
But vodka and Sprite won’t keep me from getting in out of the frost
They can’t keep me from getting lost
I’ll follow my breath and the cloud of frozen dew
You’d think that I’ve been smoking, too
Enraptured by the way I’ve walked
So many times before

They say that nothing happens here
But only here

Only here when a kid slaps his skateboard down
To the ground like another does in Central Park
Or some slum in Milwaukee or a sidewalk in Sayre
Is the sound suddenly the best talk I’ll ever hear. I swear
Only here do his wheels clatter along gray-gold cobbles
Like a caballero to the rescue of some maid in La Mancha
Only here is the tiny, green cop on patrol—
Chirping at me to cross the calle now and not later—
Just a peregrine sparrow scaring me away from her nest
Of history wrapped in cathedrals and beer
And the rest of the birds? The cigueñas bringing babes
But not enough to renovate—
To satisfy a city
Don’t cry. The old ones don’t need your pity
I swear they’re all just jumbo jets
Too big to be pets but purring their promise to take us away someday

Away to the exotic zones I’ve dreamed of one day touching
Like the kids selling crack in Teresa’s plaza
Who’ve thought about taming but settled for naming
The places they’d find if they vaulted these walls
For here?
Nothing happens here but historia
No one lives here but the living
And I’m giving up my dreams of reaching beaches
And boudoirs. Fantasies
Like Fantas in Aquarius cans
Pour elixirs of gold and jewels so old
That just sniffing them quenches a dynasty’s thirst
For conquering thrones in some tropical clime
Conquistadors all, for in no time at all
They’ve captured my heart
Not the islands or kingdoms with gaping, Gothic domes
They’re somebody’s home
But not mine

They say that nothing happens here
And to me, that’s fine

So let the Ziploc bag pass by
Sin buzz, I dunk my head in the sky
Clear and skimming mountains without their help
Paris, Milan, Morocco, Taipei will one day
Be just chapters in a tourist guide
And I know that I may never taste or sniff their sultry wares
But who really cares?
‘Cause me I’m already high
As high as Avila

I’m high on a night in Avila




Spanish vocabulary:

ancianos- old people
calle- street
ciguenas- European storks (found everywhere in Spain)
historia- history (or just story)