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You drew me as the villain of your story
Brushing over my lines of kindness
Blotting out the colors with ugly spots
You threw away my features and corners
Replaced them with shades of animosity
My image at the mercy of your delicate hands
Painting me as you wish, inking lies of me
But no matter what techniques you used
What combination of colors or strokes
Or whatever tools you used to sculpt
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder
But truth is absolute and everlasting
Go on and show off your work to the world
Be proud of the storytelling of your canvas
But you and I both know, beneath the paper
You once called this villain your loving muse
And I once called you my wonderful maker
I am an artist, try as I might, I will never fully live in this world.
A part of me will always live in the songbird's pocket,
and fly, to land on the windowsill of Romeo and Juliet,
to flutter to the doorstep of Anais Nin,
to hear the poetic masterpieces of her mind.
No, with this artist's heart and a poet's soul,  
a part of me exists only in a dream.

-Rhia Clay
Sythin Voxe May 5
You are in the bathroom,
Fixing your hair the way you like it.

The steam from your shower
is setting into the bedroom now.
I can smell your shampoo.

The skylight casting an early summer glow
across the tiny water droplets speckling your skin
makes you look studded with rhinestone.

The subtle shifting of your weight
creates a curve in your side
and as you drop your hip and bend your knee,
I think for a moment,
that you look like art.

That moments like these are what inspire
The greatest artists in the world.

That I might be like them
if you were my subject,
But I am too busy loving you
To lift a paintbrush.
You’re my muse.
Trinkets Apr 18
Used to walk through life
Nose stuck in a book,
only saw the world
in periphery of pages.

An artist of escape,
a dreamer in your youth.
Fleeing reality through stories
in all ages.

Looking up, growing up, into
something of your own.
Writing new worlds,
stuck exploring, dreams grown.
Like you did, now see
beauty in periphery.

An escape artist turned explorer.
Eric A Rosier Apr 15
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon;
Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Ahmad Jamal;
James Baldwin, Dante Alighier, Daniel Dumile.

These dead men speak to me;
literally and figuratively.
They left behind works I wish I could rival,
maybe I’m already there,
seeing their art burn in my glare;
feeling their art and poetry go through my wet black hair.
Wish men didn’t need to die,
but I love listening to dead men sing,
feels as if I’m listening to the start of spring,
but they’re more dead than the ice-cold winds of winter;
these avant-garde artists.

They come, and they most certainly go.
Some of them were young and took too much blow,
others were taken from us, treated like an unwanted **.
But they’ve gone into the void, their bodies destroyed;
all that is left is their art, and the memories that we embroid.
But even as I stare or listen to their beautiful art,
it fills me with a sense of peace, as if I can feel them touching my heart.
But it terrifies me;
these men mightier than earth left me alone—
now I’m out here sinning, I wish I could atone.
They’re all gone,
they went deep into the dark unknown.

All that is left now is the memories of these men,
their physical attachment to earth is nothing more than the art they left—
and here I am,
a delusional man,
dedicating a poem to a dying clan.
And this feeling of loneliness is all the same:
Did Basquiat see the duality of pain?
When did Picasso understand the art of childlike wonder had more beauty in its reign?
Was Bacon alone with his demons to blame?
Did the BPD of Mingus fuel his jazz?
How did John Coltrane break through the glass?
When did Jamal know his art felt like calm green grass?

Baldwin,
Alighier,
Dumile—
these poets are the reason Esioré is here.
They set the foundation for me to break through the ice,
even as they deport Mexicans and act out in an unholy vice.
They allowed me to see the pain of Haiti,
they helped me realize that my pain is tasty.

So I write to be like the avant-gardist,
so that when I die,
when I one day finally learn to fly,
even though I am so clearly drowning,
one day I can finally end my lie and look myself in the eye.
And say to my reflection, “Esioré, I see you.”
Emery Feine Mar 27
I am not accustomed to feelings of longing
As it is now not from a person

I stand on the creaking logs in the middle of a swamp's river
Balancing to remain afloat

I watch from a distance
Sitting on my rain cloud
As my acid raindrops on your safe haven homeland

I have hidden my heart under these planks
And the beating is like black and yellow sparks
Screaming in my ear
"Now,"
They shriek,
"Now."

I'm like an artist staring at a canvas
The rainbows swirl in my mind
But there is no shadow
There is no story.?

I watch the band from below
I shower them with photos
And they ask me to be there
Again and again

I watch from the wood
Longing to be in the rainbow rain
I describe the floorboards
Because that is all I know.
"And all I can sing about are the floorboards backstage." - SOFIA ISELLA
Andy Denson Mar 16
our thoughts are cradled like an unexperienced parent.
our willingness to be in each others work.
to watch is to live. to live is to watch.
films speak more on how we see our worth to
others...
maybe it's the other way around.

the campus is giving 90s teen drama.
motion pictures is why we are
here.

i am the star.
no, is she. or is he. wait, it's
all of us...

it's the thought counts. it's the frames that
count. it's the thoughts that dictate the rate.

the obligation expands as some of the angels cry over
us. protecting the rest.

some scream like the students in 'cleaners'.

does the comedy make us think? or cry instead in the
seats of  
cine lawan --

Me, [insert your name here], a filmmaker. we all win
an award or two. some of us do.
we still keep creating.

my thoughts hold me in a loose trance. dancing with
me in the heat -- walking
with me the rain.

the white lady - i mean ghost- must have stopped recording since
we can here our voices again.


is the world even gonna end? says a fragile student
two rows in front of me. their back facing her
front.

it's giving blue and hidden in the dark. illuminated
by the works of art.
cinema. it's films. movies.

that a big reason i'm alive.
it's a reason to continue
even if there is not a quick
fix to life.
films give us life. or is it
the other way
around?

as the filmmakers desends into madness -
i mean their seats,
they soak the experimental footage,
red dirt sprinkled everywhere in
a ditch--
one weeps and the other takes a shot
for a share later.


everything happens because we filmed it.
thought it. cast it. documented. recorded.
edited.
distributed.

a feedback loop.

we think we know how the plot will unfold.

i see the colors from the projections even
as i look ahead. Still. Here.
I am still here as
my thoughts-
I’m excited to share that “I am still right here for hello poetry” has taken on a new dimension. I created a short film inspired by the poem, and it had its premiere at the 2023 Mindanao Film Festival. I invite you to experience the journey from words to visuals—watch the film here: https://youtu.be/EZK15ska71c?si=UacqFPtbneDJfYeO.

Thank you for being a part of this creative adventure.
Gideon Mar 8
Sometimes you stain pages because the pain inside must be turned into art or more despair. The air in this room is too thick to breathe. I need to see the light but it never seems to come. Come with me? Come with me down a dark and winding path to places I shouldn’t go.
Gideon Mar 8
Oil on canvas can show reality,
but truth will not be found in a realistic painting.
No, truth hides in expressions of
pain, fear, love, awe, and even hatred.
Such strong feelings rapture the viewer and rupture their heart.
Only feeling can convey truth.
To be creative is not to create. It is to feel.
Creativity is not a desire, it is a command
to represent what you feel in what you make.

Successful artists are rarely happy.
The depth of emotion necessary to create
riveting artwork is not often found in joy.
Creating truth requires shadow. It requires darkness.
It requires exploration into the deep and murky waters of the mind.
You do not reach mastery of art until you have achieved mastery of the self.
Success is not fame. Success is reaching and
recreating such truth, such beauty, and such pain
that you have depicted reality in its rawest form.
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