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Zywa Oct 2022
Culture has its price:

the amount we are paying --


for Tours & Tickets.
The despise of culture as a non-necessary luxury

Collection "Greeting from before"
Kevin Sep 2022
It’s gonna get better,
Are the words I hear every day!

The worlds in a rage,
Families in complete dismay,
Yet, They continue to say,
“It’s gonna get better.”

Better for whom is the answer I seek,
As everyone suffers except the rich and elite.

Children are crying as they sleep in their graves,
Families moan in woe and rage;
Out of work and on the streets,
Homes stole by legislative greed;
People starve with not a morsel to eat
As they watch their lives stripped away, shipped overseas.
Yet, They continue to say every single day,
“It’s gonna get better.”

Who are They that speak these words of depict?
These words of emptiness filled with intentions of grief.

“They,” are the ones that control the industries
The ones that create laws and false realities,
The ones that create and destroy societies,
The ones we fought and died for with our dignity!

“They,” are the ones that live off our blood, sweat, and tears,
Taking at will with no consequences to bear,
Stripping away our wealth and dignity,
Stealing the land away from our families,
Giving to those of foreign nationalities,
With no regard to the society that entrusted, “They!”

Yet behind their smoke filled lies,
While people die,
They continue to say,
“It’s gonna get better.”
Kevin Sep 2022
We stand by those we trust,
All the while they transgress against us.
Friend or foe to behold?
For only they will surely know.

Trust someone in this day and age
Is nothing more than a noble cliché.

Slanderous words of dishonesty,
Destroying your character with their brutality.
The world believes them as they lie,
Who can one trust in this earthly enterprise?

Longing for the days of old
When men were men, as good as gold.

I long for days where a handshake meant
Your word a bond, and honor felt.
Agreements made without paper convention;
Handshakes were the business transaction.

Honor flowed throughout the lands,
Everyone gave a helping hand.
A favor wasn’t done for return,
As a friend indeed was someone earned.

Days of past will not return
As immoral acts are loved and learned.
Handshakes, a thing of the past,
Your word, a thing that no longer lasts.
What happened to loyalty, to integrity — the time when a handshake meant something?

In today's world, it seems all but forgotten. We live in a day and age of all about me with zero care on how the person you wronged fells.
In today’s America it’s:
1. Most have no honor.

2. A handshake with most means absolutely nothing.

3. Corruption stems from the top down with two sets of laws. One for them and one for the peasants — us.
Kevin Sep 2022
Violence can take hold of anyone;
It strips away the virtues of what one was;  
It is the thing that breeds contempt in one's soul,
It forces them to lash out from the depth below;

A depth so dark where terror fills the night,
A place so cold that Hell would never know,
A silence so loud, it would drive one insane;
So grim this place, no one could ever brave.

These “Ones” whose virtues were compromised
Seek vengeance against the deviants of immoral genocide;
To lash against the transgression wrought upon their souls,
To reimburse the deviants ten thousand fold.

Retribution will be made on their day of reckoning
As these deviants will regret the pain and suffering
They invoked upon the “Ones” they wronged.

For now they wish they never engaged
In their acts of brutality and incoherent rage.

Justice has set forth and finally prevailed.
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
— George Orwell
Kevin Sep 2022
The presence of our contemporary age
Alters artistic vision down a spiral of emptiness.
Artist no longer create the visual page,
Their spellbound by ambitions of digital laziness.

Visions lost to the age of simplicity,
Erased to machines’ evil desires,
Deluded by storms of deception,
Creativity ceased as hell endures its fires.

Instant gratification — the new reality —
The yearning for excellence, no endurability.
Modern day artistic creativity,
Coerced by digital debility.

Tradition bankrupt by false realities,
Lost to a pallet of ones and zeros;
Artwork with no archival ability,
The future lost to modern day technologies.
Without creativity innovation ceases to exist. Without innovation society dies. Mediocrity becomes the normal. And from these ashes rises a generation who embraces servitude with open arms.
Kevin Sep 2022
It is the thing we create from within.
From the depth of our soul
Where our passion does live.
The place we seek to find the unseen,
Those things that are seen
Within our minds and our dreams,
The things that others have not yet seen.

A vision where those can gaze and be free,
By a master at play while capturing his dreams
Upon the canvas where the art lives and breathes
Away from other influence, that he may have seen.

The art does not copy the others of known.
Instead, each piece is the artist's very own.
By bracing his feet upon the ground where he stands,
The art comes from within, from the master’s own hands.
Before the onslaught of digital and its mediocre output, art was considered a treasure. Not anymore. It’s become a world of anything goes. The way of the masters lost to a sea of 0’s and 1’s: no more perfection, no more beauty with the stroke of a brush. We entered the creative world of the mundane.

To view more of my work, visit me at https://wordswithatwist.substack.com
Zywa Aug 2022
The hall lights go on

after the film, there's no one --


we can applaud for.
"Der Zauberberg" ("The Magic Mountain", 1924, Thomas Mann)

Collection "Moist glow"
Zywa Aug 2022
Hairdressers, scissors,

razor blades and carotids --


yet, it does go well.
"De porseleinkast - Faxen aan Ger #2" ("The china shop - Faxing to Ger #2", January 29th, 1998, published 2018, Nicolien Mizee)

Collection "Out of place"
Noah Vanderwerf Jul 2022
A seventy year old woman is waiting at her physician's office in a hospital gown. Her name is called by a secretary, and she calmly gets up to walk to the desk. She is told that her doctor is waiting to speak with her in his office, where he has the clothes she arrived in.

After some time, she exits the office in her dress, shawl, and shoes. She is clutching a manilla envelope. She is wide-eyed, calm, and content. Her face glistens with the fresh residue of tears.

The woman's granddaughter is waiting in her sedan, parked in an adjacent parking structure. She is listening to music on the radio. The woman shuffles to the passenger seat door and enters the car. The granddaughter instinctively starts the car and begins backing out of the parking space. As they're leaving the parking structure, the granddaughter notices the manilla envelope held by the woman. She stares at it, missing her signal to turn onto the road. She ***** her head back forward, and her lip quivers before gradually morphing to a smile. She turns off the radio before continuing their trip home.

The woman enjoys many nights with her relatives and friends, hosting dinner parties and being treated to recreational outings.

When the woman meets friendly acquaintances or loved ones in public, they always deliberately congratulate her before swiftly and gracefully continuing their conversation as normal.

One month after the previous doctor's visit, the woman is awakened by breakfast in bed, prepared by her daughter and granddaughter who are both doing their best to contain their beaming excitement.

"These deviled eggs are wonderful. I knew you would share the skills I taught your mother."

The woman's daughter asks her if she'd like some privacy.

"Oh, no. The more the merrier! I almost couldn't sleep with how much I wondered who would be standing in my kitchen right now. Feel free to let them in, just one at a time at first if you wouldn't mind."

The woman's daughter exhaled in delightful affirmation, and obliged. The daughter and granddaughter left the woman's bedroom.

A tall man named Harvey with white hair, a scully cap,  and glasses put down a mimosa that he was nursing onto the kitchen counter. He smirks when he notices the woman's daughter nodding loudly as she walks towards the crowd. Harvey turns to the rest of the small, tight-knit crowd who are enjoying each other's company in the kitchen. He pardons his interruption, asking if they mind that he go first. Empathetically, everyone in the room encourages him to proceed.

Harvey enters the woman's room.

"Oh my lord! I wish I'd finished that script!"

Harvey chuckles at the woman's remark, bending over to hug her in her bed. The woman gleefully reciprocates, with a grape still bouncing around her mouth.

"You know, I give you full permission here on out to use or adapt anything in my vault. Consider it my retirement gift. If you need to talk to any of the new people to get the rights, just call Diane about it first. She'll straighten it all out."

Harvey praises the woman's work, saying he couldn't do any of it justice. He thanks her for the gesture, but says it won't be necessary. They spend almost fifteen minutes reminiscing with one another.

He asks her how she's feeling.

"Great, actually. Now that I've had more time to process all my feelings recently, especially with everyone else, I feel more dignified. I feel ready for what's to come. I'm surprised we're one of the few cultures of this world that do this. I always knew that this is how we meant it to be, but I was still scared of the future and didn't quite trust the process. Now I'm confident since I've felt that the process is itself trusting me. Does that make any sense?"

Harvey thinks it does. He asks if the woman would like to speak to some of the others, and she agrees.

Over the course of ninety minutes, a hearty handful of relatives and close friends visit the woman in her room in small groups, thanking her for everything they've given them and receiving her own loving compliments in response.

After everyone's spoken to her individually, they all excitedly rendezvous in the kitchen with a pastor. The last of a charcuterie board is picked at by the younger attendees while the daughter speaks to the pastor, who arrived within the past half hour. The daughter is nervously trying to clarify procedural details with the pastor, but the pastor replies speedily and in a reassuring tone.

All the visitors file back into the woman's bedroom, lining the perimeter and encircling her bed. The pastor proudly strides to the center of the room, facing the woman who is practically glowing with honor.

The pastor introduces himself out of formality to the room, but with an infectious sense of levity in acknowledgement that everyone's already acquainted with him. He thanks the woman for electing him to be the officiant of this traditional meeting. He joyously espouses a soliloquy of his personal admirations for the woman, recounting their bonding memories. He acknowledges the mutual love in the room, recognizing those in attendance.

He reaches a cadence, announcing that everyone is gathered in this room today to deliver a greeting of congratulations-in regards to some landmark information-to the woman.

The pastor looks directly at the woman and calmly says "congratulations, Eve. You're dying."

"I AM?!?!"

Grape juice leaks onto her blouse from the side of her mouth.
CJ Jul 2022
Fire up your talk boxes
Life’s such a bore
Until we discover
Today’s Rage du Jour

Do we have to turn Red
if they’re feeling Blue?

Does screaming more loudly
make it any more true?

Is it fate we must hate if
They want to make it great?

Must our faces turn redder if
They want to build back better?

What if we hear different voices?
And what if they make different choices?

Do we choose to lash out
always feel justified
As our fears turn to rage
and we’re bloated with pride?

Who among us sees clearly?
Whose judgment is never astray?

What great one among us holds just the right viewpoints
to keep cyber pitchforks at bay?

He said sinless stoneholders
could fire away
Yet there’s rocks hurling
constantly every which way

Can’t we sew up our lips
and ***** up our our ears
and realize there’s much
we can learn from our peers?

It’s hard to see it through our spite
But life is rarely black or white

Whatever happened to nuance?
When did we lose the gray?
How did this digital mob get the power to police every last thing we say?

There’s a whole vibrant world in 4K
We’re all welcome to come out and play
Let’s not label them Other
When they’re truly our brother
Only Kindness can show us the way
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