Tag: Poetry

sarahtaylorgibson:

“Fairy tales are more than moral lessons and time capsules for cultural commentary; they are natural law. The child raised on folklore will quickly learn the rules of crossroads and lakes, mirrors and mushroom rings. They’ll never eat or drink of a strange harvest or insult an old woman or fritter away their name as though there’s no power in it. They’ll never underestimate the youngest son or touch anyone’s hairpin or rosebush or bed without asking, and their steps through the woods will be light and unpresumptuous. Little ones who seek out fairy tales are taught to be shrewd and courteous citizens of the seen world, just in case the unseen one ever bleeds over.”

— S.T. Gibson

An open note to baby boomers:

you shriek that we kill the car industry
by not buying with abandon
but Detroit
was crumbling long before I was born
and storms seeded in the gases belched by metal
now sweep away our homes

we do not buy homes, you say
well
why would we?
some of us have seen that sector
collapse twice in just our lifetimes
long before we knew what a mortgage was
beyond Monopoly.

I cannot work my way through college,
you see
I have a vision of my future
and it is sitting at my kitchen table
weeping over bills I cannot pay
you have never known student loans,
but it seems I will be paying them still
when I am your age.

you are outnumbered now,
you know that?
your recklessness in having children
that you raised amid divorce
has only led to more of us.
we had to grow up too fast
in this world you used and broke
and now expect us to somehow flourish in
well
while we count change for the buses
and squeeze with friends into apartments
and work ourselves to bone to pay off all our debts
we will remember
we are young
and glory in it
no matter how you shriek
(you have taken so much from us
but we can take back this
in our selfies and our lipstick and our laughter
we are young now
and you
are still crumbling
like the rusted cars left in Detroit.)

October 7 (via spondee-soliloquy)

This is the world
made somewhat awful
and your curse is this:
to care
child, i beg
do not care so much 
that all the grief in all the world
eats you–
you cannot kill the sorrow
if it can manage your death first.
(the secret:
find a corner
make it yours
and fight for it
with everything.)

October 2 (via spondee-soliloquy)

jamesreads:

Sometimes I try to catch change happening,

to feel the moment shifting and to understand where I just was and where I am going to be now.
but this big ship is distraction of people who want to share feelings with each other

to experience love, to understand that heartache is not only a feeling, but a person and a place
and to realize that the connection you feel between yourself and another person is why you are alive.

each day spent aboard the big ship strengthens the argument for the soul, for past lives, for future lives, for generosity, for kindness.

change will lead the blind and enlighten the lost
and sometimes it will hit you hard.
You either embrace the change or you fight it
but as much as you try you will never beat change.

you’re supposed to fall in, the fall is that feeling you can’t describe.
sort of like a hundred sunsets hitting you all at once.
the big ship’s movement is subtle but it is there, it’s the ambassador of change.
and sometimes the change is all you can hope for

Change is just the act of becoming something else,
and it already started happening long before you were ready.
Throughout time change is the only thing that we have been able to rely on.
So if it is going to be there anyways, you might as try to understand why it is happening
and realize that change might just be on your side.

If you find yourself boarding a big ship
full of strange and unfamiliar faces,
remember that change is going to happen
and some of those faces may soon become friends
and those friends will change
and you will grow closer
and you will fall apart
and you will replace these friends with new friends
and you may even fall in love with some of them.

Then you will look back and believe everything seems like it just was meant to be this way
and you will wonder how you could have ever hoped it would be another way
and you will hope it will stay this way forever
and then you will realize change is about to happen again
and the big ship will board
and you will be met with a thousand unfamiliar faces
but you will know what to do

you will look back, and you will change.

I look out the window at sunset because that is when I can see change happening in front of me
and I can remind myself that each day spent aboard the big ship is another day that I have changed into something different
and I think that’s a pretty remarkable thing in itself.

“Each Day Spent”, words and image by James R. Eads inspired by Brian Eno’s song “The Big Ship”. Motion by the Glitch

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