Tag Archives: Art

IN CELEBRATION OF IGNORANCE

 

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source: angrylearnerr.com

You may choose to build an altar in my name

And sing eulogies as you get drunk all day long

Or follow my blog and all social media accounts

Secretly harbouring admiration for me

Having abandoned your own work and family

Doing these totally at your own peril

 

Coz I won’t be waking up chanting “oms” or burning incense

Reading the stars and ancient manuscripts at night

Writing long philosophies and moral codes

Or walking down the street followed by a picking of spiritual seekers

Carrying myself like someone who really knows what he is doing

And that that thing he is doing is nothing

 

What do I know of divinity

What do I know of hatred

What do I know of love

What do I know of weakness

What do I know of happiness

What do I know of knowledge

What do I know of art

What do I know of prostitution

What do I know of hunger

Maybe if you wait long enough

Burning the midnight oil in cyberspace

You might have the pleasure of being the first

To see another work of my art

To see another grand expression

Of the depth of my ignorance

Of the richness of my shallowness

Maybe you will then finally see

In that precious midnight moment

That there is really nothing new

To learn from another human

Who is just a stuttering mere mortal like you

Trying to say stale things in great ways

Sounding like he knows anything about nothing

And actually saying nothing about anything

 

And

Whilst countless shamelessly beg

At the doorstep of knowledge

Priding themselves as masters

Of art and science and law and philosophy

 

I will turn myself in bed

And continue snoring

As I dream on

Laughing in my sleep

At those who thought I had something grand to say

THE SIMPLE WAYS OF ART

source: pinterest

It’s 1 am

How do I do something no one has ever written

Write something no one has ever done

Outstandingly creative or ingenious

That gets the reader stuck on its pages and lessons

A real page- and life-turner

That remains evergreen even when my hair turns grey

Something that will cost some sweet sweat

The kind that precedes a particularly delightful rest

The kind that only comes after rock-hard labour

 

This is the question I keep asking

At 4:30 am

 

This is the eternal curse of the artist

That high bar we have set for ourselves

That forever keeps us below the scientist

That high bar we never attain to

That makes a mockery of us before the scientist

Whose life is so simple

A very theoretically pragmatic mix of principles

No matter how actually chaotically inadequate this mix is

 

We forever fawn over our inferiority before them

The scientist who needn’t rise beyond his senses

The scientist who needn’t read between the lines of this piece

The scientist whose neurons fire away in peace

We artists be forever murdering ourselves

Suiciding and homiciding all through life

The artist wakes up every morning with a hammer to the head

He then picks at the pieces with long nails

Same nails he used to scratch his itchy under a night before

He scatters the bits with his scrawny feet

So bony from years of starvation

Because inspiration did not give 50 kobo if he survived

In a world of indie publishing, miscellaneous blogging and facebooking

He peers with eyeballs painfully straining hard

For something beyond the senses

Something truly beautiful

That could not have come from among those neurons and equations

Something more than a mockery of his senses

Writing simply as his eyes have seen or ears heard

He has to spin the magical into it

He cannot paint that drab leaf the way it is

The leaf has to look like a flower

A glorious flower nobody has seen before

art, draw, drawing, eye, eyes, freak

source: favim.com

The artist has to produce a work of wonder

A work that the senses have to adore

A work the scientist has to bow before in awe

 

Make no mistake the scientist works hard

Starting from the imagination

Creating a complex question

But he then turns the simplistic way

Reduces the wonder to a series of observations and equations

 

The scientist has his own merits

 

But,

 

The artist has to dig into the supernatural

He has to bridge the realms of the seen and unseeable

He has to produce a wonder

The scientist did not know existed

In a way that could not be explained by equations and mere observations

Using tools the scientist did not know existed

He looks at the simple elements

Eats them all up

Regurgitates lying down

Whilst the scientist scorns

Calling him a lazy goat

Who cannot handle the rigours of elaborate farm work

 

Only to produce a wonder the same scientist can apprehend

And adore with his own senses

 

A world beyond mere observations and simple equations of life.

Of music and dance and torture

They are there again, just like they were yesterday.

photo-of-break-dancing-san-francisco

As if that was all that mattered. Wonder when that’d be me! *sigh* (Oh, please just don’t die from your fall to the ground.) (Source: online, unknown)

 

See, my day has been just good

I manage to make a living and don’t complain

But these guys just want to make me cry

I have never done anything to hurt them

I patiently wait for a snake-child to cross

If ever our paths crossed

And I definitely never hurt fleas

But they do not let me be

They know what time I pass by every evening

On my way back from work

They see me lost in thought in some part of my mind

And with the other part looking all around me critically appraising my environment

Looking for new stimulation and absorbing the world around me

They see me all the while nodding my headphone-padded head to some beat

So they settle at that same spot, right on scene

Working up the steam on their acts and arts

Up to that moment when I walk by

They start with regular beats and moves

They know I never miss the wicked musical gears and sound system

They know I notice their eternally killing matching sleek black outfits

They know I am not be able to stop them

They then work their ways up

Throwing in increasingly complicated moves

With recklessness, as if he did not care about living till the next day..

With recklessness, as if he did not care about living till the next day..

Moves they don’t care that it will take aeons for me to learn

The choreographer stands near the mouth of the formation

Not part of the dance because he apparently has a higher purpose

Watching out closely for my every micro-expression

At how maddeningly his well-planned moves are being executed by the dancers

The rappers take the centre of the platform

With lines that could make a gentleman go bonkers

Reeling out rhymes that could make a poet dream

Of the age when poetry must have been born from rap

An age that he was not aware of

They build up steam steadily

And when they know I draw closer they increase the volume of the mixer

Or how else would it sound louder in my ears

They know it’s evening and the breeze will serve them well

Then they show moves that make them seem to be flying

They sway and slither and bounce and lock and pop and stomp

All with every movement of the easy breeze

They make me read meaning into every breath and hiss of the air

They obey the wind

The rappers’ lines carrying on the wind in a way that defied physics

I got distinction in physics

But for the beauty I saw all those years in school,

They seem like dirt compared to what these guys do with the wind

Moments I wish I were deaf

So I’d not hear the steady booms against my ear drums

Making me head shake subconsciously like one having a focal seizure

Never mind, the bass would still make my heart and viscera resonate

Or better still, I be blind

Then I would not see these wicked wizards and shape-shifters

Floating in the wind at times and other times sharply moving like electricity

Never mind, the thuds of their feet as they stomp would get to me somehow

Lecrae-Concert-3-use

See, there! That moment when he (in this case, Lecrae Moore) goes insane, as if possessed by something inhumanly. And the crowd goes lunatic…. (source: online, unknown

 

tumblr_mg8gbxbhjZ1r9g2tqo1_500

That moment of mad paralyzing ecstasy… an experience to kill, or die, or live for…. (Source: online, unknown)

Then they watch for the climax

That moment

When a straight-faced calculating and sober-minded adult doctor suddenly bursts into tears

Because he cannot understand why they would taunt him

With such displays of artistic perfection

Don’t tease and call me “only human after all”

What am I to do

If you cut me I bleed

I am human

If you rap and move like that

I cry with longing and envy

Wishing I could be you,

Right there

In that moment

Wielding the greatest weapon you have over me now

Your mad love for the lines and moves

With that confidence and ease accompanying your ability to do them

That you know I can read very clearly all over you

In that moment

Right there

When a scientist who lives on and deals with facts and Pure and Undefiled Science

Is brought figuratively to his knees

Before a phenomenon he has no control over

As he literally quickens his heels

His eyes already leaking tears

 

It just is unfair!

DRUMS

 

And let's all get high striking the innocent drums... (source: goodmanlivingwell)

[And let’s all get high striking the innocent drums… (source: goodmanlivingwell)]

The skin stretched taut
It then speaks of things beyond it

The artist grabs it with both arms
With the force of pleading
Strikes it across the face
He begs the drum to speak
The drum speaks then loftily
As if of its own accord
As if it had a choice
It cries out in a tune too high
The tighter the skin is stretched
The greater the pain it suffers
The louder and finer the cries
With masochistic ecstasy

We then hear these cries and are happy
We put the dance to our feet
And pride ourselves like connoisseurs
Of musical sadism
A primal form of art
Of which
We are all artists
And we delight in pain
Whether when inflicted on us
And we dance in self-pity
Or sweet vengeful bitterness
Or when others around us suffer
And we gather round the table
To feast on the delicious degradation of others’ misfortunes
We express an unknown sort of disgust or shock
At some scandal
Oh the thrill we feel all the way
When we make drums of others

Even the innocent little kid is already being initiated into the art. (source: smithsonianmag.com)

 

[Even the innocent little kid is already being initiated into the art. (source: smithsonianmag.com)]

Carry your troop away
I want none of you
Don’t disturb this lonesome artist
Lounging out peacefully
On his rooftop
Where he has placed a mat
For him to lie stretched out skin-bare
Light-brown leather
Just another drum
But in the arms of a Creator
Kind and merciful unlike all these I see
And don’t you dare call me irritable
Just because I can’t dance to your sick tune.
_____________________________________________

BACKGROUND: Please, if I may very mildly say, I am not a fan of how ingeniously cruel we can be as humans when we delight in the suffering of people. Sadly, this does not exempt the seemingly nice ones at times when they have reacted in apparent horror at another’s misfortune. Meanwhile, underneath are all sorts of feelings and thoughts they would not be exactly proud of if shown clearly.
So, let none tag me along in these discussions. I’ll be sure to spoil the fun for you. Don’t worry, I won’t mind when you all turn your appetites towards the “misfit” in the comment thread, away from the true victims who need more from you than your clichéd expressions of mock shock, which seem to be ALL you would have to offer.

Thoughts Of The Constipated Writer

image

(Source: online)

Aha! Come now one and all
You simple-minded children of mine
Its evening time and your father is high
Come hear his constipated thoughts

 
/Intermission…
No! I am not playing on words
Yes! I am an unceremonious teetotaller
And these ain’t inane rants
Of a drunk old hungrily grunting fool/

 
Of the unwise poet who prepared a meal
In the pot of ikain* soup
Does he think artistic wisdom is to be found
In the potpourri of fascinating words and ideas

He pulls his shit together
As he enters creativity’s toilet
His eyes look ahead
Staring
Hard
Unblinking
Like an obstipated mad cow
And proceeds to desecrate the arena

He now holds his head empty of words
Relieved of the mangled mass
Now flowing out on the screen for all to eat
He can’t do any wrong
His eyes now calm and dreamy
Like he is seeing a vision

(come away in your thoughts with me for a mo, please…)-
That brief moment that happens on the best and worst of us
When we peek into the supernatural
Into something too awesome to be earthly
That brief moment of clarity
So brief we soon forget it amidst the many years we live
So clear our warped mind soon denies it
Because we are used to drinking muddy tadpole-infested waters
And have grown oddly morbidly fat feeding on poo
Grown too tough for simple truths and pleasures of life
Grown too twisted to swallow anything straight
And create something truly beautiful in return
-(and back to the silly story…)

Ah! But he is the lucky one tonight
He holds his head empty of words
He is ready to believe now
He will accept any answers now
This poet will even write mathematical formulae
And pass them for artistic inspiration
Anything would do

Just pray he doesn’t fall asleep
Before making sense of all the mess he has created
In the name of art
In the name of finding an answer to life
In the name of art.

image

(Source: online)
 
*ikain soup /i: Ikain/- a local delicacy prepared amongst the tribe of Earthdwellers consisting of Immense-Knowledge-About-Immense-Nothingness.

 
__________________________________

BACKGROUND: Someone has said that it is very logical for an artist to admit to the unseen as he considers the artistic process –of birthing a genuine work of art. Sometimes I find me looking for some inspiration from the outside world around me (only to see the world has not learnt any new lessons since the last time I wrote about it). Then, I leisurely finger through the pages of my current life experiences for something that might jump at me (only to realize they are too confusing for even me to make any sense of them to readers), before I try piecing together highlights of my past for a way to coin a story (just to conclude on how stale the little interesting parts are). Then I scour my beliefs and views regarding life in general for a quick lesson (and end up reasonably agreeing with others they are too controversial –for me to spit out for anyone looking for an easy read). Soon, I am desperately clubbing through everywhere for just anything to write, because my fingers are becoming very itchy. But sometimes, without warning, I suddenly start feeling almost feverish and words I cannot quite hear start pouring through my head. That moment, I know I have to write something, anything. And I write. And the words form. This piece is a mild acknowledgement of the process of attempting to create something sensible from a mess of ideas in one’s human mind.

P.S. If you are still confused –understandably –might I suggest you regard the father, the unwise poet and the author as one and same person.