Celebrating Freedom

On Independence Day,
I decided against going to see the pageantry out on the water.
The East River banks were bloated with tourists and townies alike.
Instead, I stayed at home, in Ridgewood, waiting for the noise to begin.

I followed the sound to find the bright burning colors in the sky.
I was never much of a patriot;
Then again, I never fought for my right to exist.
I left home, taking the road with my ears open.
Every family sat outside, smiling, prepared with sparklers.
In the road there were soda bottles, plugged with rockets!

On every street the fireworks crackled.
They boomed, banged, clanged and rang out
On the usually quiet suburb streets.
Fizzles and hisses,
But also great explosions!
The cops got to see them just as soon as I did;
Shortly after, the lights were gone.

I kept walking from one light to the next, and each boom
Brought me further away from home.
I added harmony to a drunken chorus of "The Star Spangled Banner"
Come from a nearby house; they were laughing all the while through.

I walked in silence past an enormous, peaceful cemetery
Full of large and ornate headstones.
Today I didn't feel fear. They celebrated too, I think.

And then, I arrived.
The trees blocked my view at first, but then I saw it --
The East River, at a distance. Piled in front of a large, fenced in area,
Were dozens of families, peering eagerly through the chain links
To see the fireworks, likely a mile away.
I was in the Mexican neighborhood now,
And their fireworks interested me more than the
Explosive extravaganza of our Manhattan friends.
The reason I admired their show is mixed
Somewhere between their fresh patriotic love
And their superior party-throwing skills.
Most of all, they still have hope that
This country will provide if they remain faithful.
I wish I thought so, too.

What a beautiful and strange sort of party.
What a wonderful night.

Creation

Latest writings are sort of tumbling out one by one over the next few days. I've been lacking a reasonably fast computer for a while. Though I have a lot of new things to say, I'm trying to compensate by adding my own suspense (bottle-necking output).

There were days of absolute sadness,
The sick feeling that someone has emptied out your belly.
Depression has stolen your constitution, the abstract wonders of your soul.
This sadness demands answers without asking questions.
Sadness gives the ultimatum, and you follow, because you are dependent.
Because you are weakened by the thought of weakness,
Emptied by the notion of greater emptiness to come.

There were days in the middle with lagging mind, the defective attention.
This may be one of those moments, evolving into ages.
The silent minutes,
Inspecting the minute differences in pixels on a screen;
The endless seconds,
Picking at something small and distracting on the wall,
Or scraping at the bottom of your foot.
These days are usually spent alone.

Then there are days of all-encompassing joy.
Oh God, the feeling of joy.
When creativity and inspiration combine
With a feeling of mindlessness, of effortless creation.
Generation of new, crispy ideas that excite
And pop! in the mind like air-bubble-candies.
They release and regenerate perpetually,
And bring a person total completeness,
Which expression through words cannot recreate.
And yet, expression triggers that memory.
And as expression does,
Coaxes the deep breath of motivation.
Inspiring inspiration, until the last expiration.

This is my creation story.

May 2014

The 'Show' -- The Reveal

All for the glory of a moment

All the time

All the quiet tears

The full-throated sobs

The years of stress, and

The instant of unequalled joy.

The moments of intensity

Every ounce of artistic energy

Every instrospective interrogation

The moments of questions

Of why

And of how?

And of what am I doing?

All the delectable

Blissful seconds

Establishing communication

Voice to hands to strings to keys

Loving conversations

Between other people's eyes

And souls and psyches.

All this for a moment

Already gone.

All this to create 

A collective memory of Beauty

For a room of strangers.

Outro

Dearest dear ones,
My family, my friends, my life...

It’s not that I don’t love you.

I admire you, I need you to be a part of me, wherever I go.

I love every nuance of your smiles, the harmonies and melody of your laughter.

I love that you all love each other so completely.

I adore the way you have set up your lives, each with the other, to live and die as family.

When I come to see you, I come to observe your way of living.

I am enthralled. I cherish your devotion to each other, each and every one of you.

But I am not like you.

I cannot simply plant myself in one place, like a tree to be watered,

And grow up high with my feet in the earth.

I cannot wither, I cannot lose my leaves.

I must always be moving.

The futures you wish for yourselves, your dream come true,

That is like a death sentence to me.

While many perceive me as an oddity,

I feel satisfaction in my wandering.

I am not a spectacle,

I am a person, with problems of my own.

I pay my monthly mortgage in stress, endless workdays, self-scrutiny and loneliness.

I give more than I take, to somehow apologize for the way I feel.

But I will not apologize anymore.

My work is my love.

I am free.

For post V-Day

Here, a little message from a recent,
confirmed believer in genuine happiness.
This is for everyone who hated Valentine's Day.
(I didn't mention the V-word on social media
until the day after,just to be safe.)
I think that Valentine's Day and
all holidays need to be revamped
like music needs to be revamped (wa-waaa vamp, music... get it?! Oh well.)
Music and holidays used to be an excuse for community.
Now we dedicate both to the spending of money
for temporary happiness for only ourselves.
Well I reclaim Valentine's Day for the community.
EVERYONE can sing. EVERYONE can love.
NOT just those who get flowers can sing.
NOT just those who get flowers can love.
Since its HISTORY is obviously sordid, so let's make history again.
Making history.
Speaking of making things...

_____________________________________________________________________


Make a table out of
cardboard scraps
Make a life from
parents' broken dreams
Make a happy day out of
grey morning slush
Make my own path from
whatever I damned well decide
Make music from nothing
or from the past repeating
Make love and money,
both just to the point of satisfaction
Make space in your mind, un-clutter,
and scrub all the corners clean
Make a life with a partner
out of a history of confused choices
Make the decision to be loved
when you feel undeserving

15 Feb 2014

New Ideas

I have decided to dedicate this blog to poetry and other writings instead of art. I've all but given up art for music and work, but I'll get back to it soon.
Writing is something I do often, and more often with the intensely long subway rides. So, here is one, and more to come.

On the M train

Last night, around midnight,
I stepped on the M train
And found I had a car to myself.

The whole car, just me.

A woman stepped on briefly,
But probably took
My sounds of amusement
As crazy ramblings
And left to a more peopled car.

So I sat for one whole stop
In the silence, the hollow
Echo of a ghost town.
I could hear the groaning
Of the weathered metal
On metal
On tracks
And the wind around the car,
Pushing as went.
The silence was so obvious
And so strange
That I had to laugh
To myself
In amazement.
That bubble of undisturbed

Calm

That came not only from the quiet car,
but the quiet Monday night
At Myrtle Ave. and Broadway.

The noise I can handle,
I can block it out after a while.
Stillness, no; I'm no longer able
To adapt to that quality,
The quality of absence.

A woman and her baby carriage got
on the train car
At the next stop.
Just one.
I, just for fun, though that I
Wanted to offer her my seat.



Francesca Erni

Please do not steal my stuff... copyright blah blah legal waste of time...

New sketch, new deviant

Today I listened to the new album by Queens of the Stone Age -- "...Like Clockwork". True, it's not traditional QotSA fare, but there's something nice and juicy about it. They will never stoop so low as to produce pop, unlike some people. Yes, I'm looking at you, Red Hot Chili Peppers. I'll miss how disgusting Queens of the Stone Age used to sound (BIG compliment), and I'll miss how devious they were before. But this new album isn't necessarily bad, especially considering the fact that it inspired me to draw my first sketch in months. Yay! Oh, the album just finished playing on my Spotify. Find it there for yourself, it's one of the few places the album can be played for free. (Note: Spotify's ads are horrible. Horrible!)

So, here is my newest sketch, "Ideal self portrait". Ink. First draft.
Maybe more color, maybe more detail. Eh, we'll see.
It's one of a series of reversible drawings, viewable from both top to bottom and bottom to top.

Also, I am a new deviant! Find me through my deviantart account here!

Ciao friends!