the kid who stepped in dog ****
***This is not a poem. It is really just a letter to poets, which is why I stuck it in this section, so other poets would read it. It is unedited, and contains many (many many) errors in spelling, grammar, and puctuation. I wrote it in a fit of inspiration in less than five minutes. I thought the fact that I diddn't think about it at all while I was writing it would be best illustrated by not putting too much thought into it (duh), so I diddn't. I'm not, by the way, trying to sound high and mighty in this letter. It was just an idea. Let me know what you think. It's called "the kid who stepped in dog ****".
It's been said so much that it's almost, like, the most cliche ****ing thing an artist can say anymore, but that's fine. I don't mind
reiderating the thoughts of the great minds that came before me. Life is a series of moments. That's all it is. If you're moving,
wrether youre content at the time or not, even if youre thinking or not, you're waiting for that next moment. I get dopesick, so I wait for
the dope. I get it and take it, and then the moment comes where it kicks in. "Ah," I think to myself, "yeah. That's what I was waiting for.
Nice". I enjoy it for a moment, and then go about my business of waiting for the next moment. I play a song that I wrote knowing that everything
I play and sing has that one moment where it all overwhelmes me, where I cry a little to myself (though of course I'm too much of a "man"
to do it externally). I go through the motions to get to that moment, enjoy it, and then go on with my business once again. That's all it is.
The brief time, usually only for a second or two, where you are completely aware of everything. That's becoming increasingly rare, by the way.
Awareness. We have all of these toys, TV, the internet, video games, dream machines, that are pretty much designed to distract us from awareness...
maybee that says something about the culture we've created, though. We need to distract ourselves these days from the fact that we are distracting
ourselves these days. I'm not saying per se that it's a bad thing. maybee that makes our moments of awareness just that more lucid. Kind of like
jumping into a hot shower after coming in from an hours worth of shoveling snow. Do you realise that we are almost never really fully aware of anything
that's going on? Think about it. You're certainly "conscious" all day, but how much of the day do you remember? Maybee one or two moments, if it
was an extraordinary day. Moments of bliss. Moments of pain. Moments of confusion. In the end, this is what art is and should be. The celebration
of moments. This is why I love photography above all other arts (even writing). You snap a picture, and consequently remember a brief scene which
in all honesty you would have otherwise probably forgotten. This should be celebrated, exhaulted even. But not just the "big" moments. The crooked
bird house sitting in a dying tree. Your shadow on the ground. The little kid who stepped in dog ****. Alot of people become artists in order to honor
their biggest influences. There is nothing wrong with this. You should be grateful to ANYONE who had a hand in getting you to where you are now,
but if all we write about and paint about and talk about is the past, then the moment is forgotten and the future forgets us. All I'm trying to say
here is that as artists (and I do very much, as you probably do as well) we should bring reverence to the little things that would have dissapeared
into memory. If you tend to write of beauty, take a moment to write about the last time you cried. You don't have to admit what you cried about,
just that you cried and for a moment (there, I used the word again) you were vulnerable. If you, on the other hand, tend to write about dark and gloomy
things, and theres nothing wrong about that for those are also moments which we all share, take a moment to write about that last time you woke up and
smiled. There doesn't have to be anything significant about it, just an honest portrayal of a truly human moment. Archaeologists most often look
at the art of an ancient culture to determine the way that culture thought. Interacted. Existed. This is our trust, to define our time and place in
history, which will inevitably stretch long after any of us is there to explain it in person. Through our words, we achieve immortality. We become
almost like Gods. Art has that much power. History, after all, is nothing but a timeline of illustrated moments. Take a "moment" (heh) to think about that. Peace- Chris
