To Whom It May Concern:
I have been an artist since birth
but clearly not genetically.
My mother was a dentist’s apprentice,
while I was in the womb.
My father was a quirky astrophysicist
and still amidst the devils,
he is yet to find himself.
I on the other hand make sandwiches.
I make sandwiches,
I take photos,
and I write the things that I sense
or that I think I know.
Very simple.
I have never been one to understand the American dream, but I do respect my need for it.
I knew the idealistic trend of the Internet very well,
as I was raised in Silicon Valley,
but the phrase “From rags to riches”
never really penetrated my questioning soul.
--------------
Instead,
I found that the world was my oyster
and I gregariously lived my life in the pursuit
of one-dollar oysters.
I have watched the seasons change.
I have known the plight of love
and I’m even wise enough
to lead my heart by it.
Elisa would tell you.
--------------
I have gawked at knobby shadows
falling on a wall traced out by a winter tree
and then been entranced by the odds
that I might be the one
who sought out that beauty
having been there to see it too.
But more so,
I have seen births.
I have seen the vibrancy from which life unfolds.
And I have seen the clenches of deaths fingers
wrap around the neck
of my most honored and beloved people.
I’ve seen beautiful cities fall prey to oversaturation,
I’ve watched the crashing waves
of the Pacific Ocean **** in pollution,
I’ve seen fires blaze through
the mountain sides of Santa Barbara,
and I’ve watched the shoals bats that fly
at the twilight summons from underneath bowels
of South Congress Bridge,
which is never bad.
I’ve made friends,
and I have made enemies
both of which I love.
I have been sick
then been healthy
and respect the values of their lessons.
Some of the other things I’ve seen
I’ll admit are unimportant.
--------------
But I still watch the trickling patterns of rainfall
and ponder at their stories.
I still squint at the gleam of the ocean
and beg it to tell me its origins.
I will always gaze at the sky
and I ask for a gust that might make the hairs
of my arm tingle with delight,
or nostalgic sorrow,
or anything at all.
I’ve questioned everything but what my mother told me.
Not until I turned eighteen, did I start that.
I’ve built batteries out of vinegar, aspirin, pennies
and copper wire.
I charge the insight of my peers
by poking and prodding.
I can braid hair,
I can hop scotch,
I can play the juice harp.
I fight for the underdog.
I fight for the tormented.
I speak for the scolded,
the hated,
the sad,
the abused,
the forgotten,
the forsaken,
the foolish,
the sinning,
the begging,
the beaten,
the overworked,
the shy,
the lost,
the hungry,
the bilious,
the old,
the gruesome
and the dead.
I feast on alcohol
where there is no other sustenance.
The rhythm of chagrin bounces in my chest,
as a drum would beat
in a symphony of regret.
But I strive on
as if it was a sacrifice to the holy aliens
that made the Maya sacrifice too.
This is my blood.
It gushes from my blue veins
as I apperceive the meaning of that throbbing pulse.
I know the consequence
of the truth behind our movement.
A world founded on humanity,
imperfect and failing at all.
Life in this universe must be special.
It’s the stardust in our physical,
human elements that makes this magic true.
We ooze with the likeness of nothing else.
Our ancestors welled up with stardust
and DNA from somewhere else.
Our sweat, made up of passing galaxies,
dripping tears of organic thought
into the trickling river of time.
That alone must be something
to capture an imagination.