soundtrack is thao nguyen. she and her band, the get down, stay down, are having a spring tour. if i’m not too too swamped with work, imma try to roll through. i’ve seen her live and she’s dope. her myspace doesn’t have my favorite of her songs, tallymarks, but hey it’s on youtube. so. oh and she’s vietnamese. we dope.
do you know how some people see sounds? they perceive music as an array of colours because of whatever strange connection has been made in their heads. though mostly this is is discussed in relation to the physical senses, i have something similar with emotions.
when i feel an emotion, there’s a tint in the back of my mind that colors everything. when i feel an emotion coming offa person through my physical senses, there’s a subtle flare of colour around them. it sounds weird, but it’s something i’ve grown up and kinda like. it’s unique. which seems to be a goal all its own in this city.
i guess why that’s the reason i describe poetry using the painter metaphor. we are painters, emotions are our paint, every subtle shadow corresponding to the exact nuance of a feeling. i’ve said it before, i don’t like using words like love or hate in my work without some sort of qualification. what kind of love? what kind of hate? what does it mean to have a hate for a person once loved? a hate born from seeing those you care about being hurt by the target of your disdain?
i’m still trying to convey that complexity in my work. it’s hard. one’s control of language, one’s technical skill is the tilt of the head that makes the Mona Lisa forever haunting. i’m learning it as i go, trying to build from traditions before me, but this shit ain’t gifted. it’s earned.
though, i do have enough of the romantic (the era, not the gift card) in me to see the poet as special on some level. maybe it’s my own arrogance speaking. but at the same time, there’s great technical illustrators that are still unable to convey any depth of feeling in their work.
i guess i’m rambling again.
my days have been stormy, the wind and rain that seeps into your bones and steals even the ghost of warmth or light from your being. then the tempest arrived, destroying the mud wattle buildings i’ve built up. now… the calm has come.
that specific calm that comes in the wake of devastation. the feeling of resignation that somehow still allows one to continue with one’s life. maybe the exact shade of emotion as the man who knows his cancer will kill him, so chooses to live his life as he wills. the specific gradation that belongs only to the boy who realizes that these three guys are going to kick his ass, so he might as well grab onto one and keep swinging. the swirling peace of a woman who is finally able to leave and be done, after too much time and investment in an awful affair.
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colours
a mother’s love, an earthy red
oceanic in its depth
and temperament.
the feeling of the first nice day in spring
the pastel yellow of the sun
seen through freshly dusted douche goggles
infatuation is the whiteness of halogen lamps
haloed by a blinky, misty red, blinding
so that all else is relegated to the periphery
the satiated guilt of indulged gluttony
is the white of institutional light
reflected from the melting richness of vanilla ice cream left out
the contentment in the willingness to wait
is noon sun through a teal window pain
dust motes idly dancing
an adolescent’s frustrated rage
is the intense, pulsating red
of an infected cut
the frustration of hard work proved wanting
the sandy red-brown of the specific layer
of pit dug in the desert that is just kissed by moisture
a parent’s grief is a blurring
a twisted distortion of colour
that strips the senses of perception
the desire for cold vengeance, pallid
blue-grey of apprentice’s iron
fit for plowshares, forged into a sword
interpersonal ambivalence, the blue black green
of healing bruises, timorous
in its betweeness
quiet resignation is the ochre red
of dried blood, spilt and wasted
without recourse
a boy’s artsy-pretension depression, the cliched
inky blackness, thick with its self-imposed weight
a hungry dark, its smoky contrails reaching
my love for you, even now
the brown-gray of petrified wood, no longer alive
but always persistent
Tags: art, emo, philosophy, poetry, women
props to feeling in colors and to thao. i absolutely love her without reason, in all her raw, awkward vocal, guitar rocking uniqueness…
love is not an emotion, but common sense; however, persistent memories always surprise me to be more forceful than i’d ever imagined…