We September 26, 2009

One note.  One song.  One people risen in one protest to one wrong.  The cries reach out loud and long.  They are the resounding tones of a gong.  Together we create the hot coals of change which can only be touched by a tong.  We.  We reach.  We reach the stars and beyond.  We are the atmosphere clinging heavy on the gravity of this world.  We pull up and away as the weight pulls down and we eye the struggle that we’ve become.

One choice.  One question.  One answer waiting on the tip of our tongue.  The words stumble out drunk and stung.  We are the vibrancy of a metal rung.  Together we build the air escaped from a lung.  We.  We are.  We are only young.  We are the age that waits to level the valleys of skin.  We still do not operate on the motion of the system that we have become.

One chance.  One moment.  One action moved from the mission deep within.  The muscles creak out rusty and thin.  They are the reverberating waves of the din.  Together we choreograph the dance and spin.  We.  We leap. We leap through the hoops.  We are the air compressed by the stress of the jump.  We lift with the apparent ease of birds while feeling the friction of feather pressed bone.

One life.  One earth.  One human standing on a barren plateau.  My heart beats out deep and low.   It is the rhythmic cadence of a solo.  Together we compose a masterpiece so much better than a rondeau.  We.  We belong.  We belong intertwined.  We are the completed circle of artist and art.  You are the Deity.  I am the craft.  I reached through life and You carried me home.

(c) Lauren Otheim – 2009

Free Play

Who is the muse and where does she play?  Is she on the ground so that one must be careful not to step on her in the morning?  Or is she in the stone waiting for the sculptor to melt surfaces away and display the infinite?

She is everywhere and nowhere, waiting for that special sensitivity of hand that carries the deftness and readiness to absorb surprises when life tries to block or derail us from the passions that caused us to fall in love with art.

She is the exploration of the inner dimensions, blossoming in a single moment.  She is the spiritual connectedness that causes boundaries between life and art to disintegrate.  She is the one who causes words and ideas to come so rapidly that we cannot write them down fast enough and she is that journey of self that we experience inside every work of art.

Moving dry eyes to tears and to laughter again.  Creating copious messes out of the most stringent of men.  She is the language of movers and doers, of lovers and learners.  She is the creative mind that plays with the instincts she finds in your innards.

She is a matter of context, how we do what we do.  She rides the waves of humanity and yet still supports us like that dirty old shoe.  She slithers and dances, impish, yet solemn.  She is crazy and wild and cannot be contained by texts and columns.

These interreflecting themes, these prerequisites of creation are the things that make her scream, they are the breaking of expectation.  This creating of something new is not by the mind but by the inner necessity and boundaries made blind.

She is the improvisation of an attitude, a spirit.  Holding life above flames and hoping just to sear it.  She is galumphing through the immaculately rambunctious and seemingly inexhaustible energy as she takes hopes and dreams and makes them work in synergy.

She is untamed, unpredictable, innocent, destructive yet her alluring charm has the power to be seductive.  Continuous adjustment of continuous change holds the promise of adventure, of a journey unchained.

She is the cloak that hides us when we have to disappear, for how can art form when we are still here?  She is the wide-eyed concentration, most favorable to its germination, in which both child and world vanish from the place which they are banished.

She is an explosion of creativity into those conventional ideas such as daily routines and Ave Marias.  She is the improvisational theater of everyday life and the wanted relief to workforce strife.

She is the muse of the ages and she litters our pages with foolish advice that’s better than sages’.  She works off the clock and finds time to mock our silly decisions that we watch like a hawk.  She determines our ravings and genius creatings so that somehow we see what life’s meant be.

(c) Lauren Otheim – 2009

A Sound Poem: Star Night

Yawn

Snore… snore… snore…snore…snore…snore…

Tick tock… tick tock…

Yawn

squeak

Tip-toe… tip toe… tip toe

Creak

Tip-toe… tip toe… tip toe

Wind… wind…

Ahhh

Yawn

(c) Lauren Otheim – 2009